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booksbeyondimagining · 7 years

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Spindle Fire, by Lexa Hillyer

On Sale Date: April 11, 2017

**I received this as an e-galley from HarperCollins through Edelweiss in return for an honest review.**

My Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2 out of 5 stars)

Synopsis:

Half sisters Isabelle and Aurora are polar opposites: Isabelle is the king's headstrong illegitimate daughter, whose sight was tithed by faeries; Aurora, beautiful and sheltered, was tithed her sense of touch and her voice on the same day. Despite their differences, the sisters have always been extremely close. And then everything changes, with a single drop of Aurora's blood--and a sleep so deep it cannot be broken. As the faerie queen and her army of Vultures prepare to march, Isabelle must race to find a prince who can awaken her sister with the kiss of true love and seal their two kingdoms in an alliance against the queen. Isabelle crosses land and sea; unearthly, thorny vines rise up the palace walls; and whispers of revolt travel in the ashes on the wind. The kingdom falls to ruin under layers of snow. Meanwhile, Aurora wakes up in a strange and enchanted world, where a mysterious hunter may be the secret to her escape . . . or the reason for her to stay.

My Review:

Alright, I was so excited for this book when I first read the description, but honestly, it was kind of a disappointing read. While the concept itself was interesting, there were many things that let a bitter taste in my mouth and had me gradually growing more and more disillusioned with this book. To begin with, while the plot starts off decently and had me enjoying it for a while, it slowly divulges into something that is long and drawn out, and I am astounded that this is being dragged out even more into a duology. The story seems to focus mostly on Isabelle and Aurora’s personal growths. They both seem affronted to discover that their country and society is actually shitty, and from there have to rediscover themselves all while trying to save their kingdom. While Isbe goes a long, long journey to get the prince of a neighboring kingdom to come be her sister’s true love to awaken her (because sure, that’s how things work, Isbe), Aurora is stuck in one place, a dreamland that is inescapable, where she is just trying to find a way back to her world, all the while semi-falling in love with a boy whom she barely knows or spends time with while there. There is also a subplot dealing with two evil faerie twin sisters, one of whom supposedly killed the other, but the mysteries of which are so drawn out and confusing that it’s hard to be really interested or invested in it, despite its apparent importance to the overall plot. There are clues and insights shown throughout that seem like they are supposed to make things clearer about this mystery, but actually make things more confusing and it isn’t until the very end that the faeries’ story is explained in all of one very short, and kind of anti-climactic, chapter. When it comes to the characters, I’m going to just come out and say it: the character and relationship development is just wack. Isabelle, the bastard blind daughter of the king, has this awkward relationship with Gilbert, her best friend forever, where they both love each other but think they aren’t good enough for each other for the obvious pining reasons. Then she meets Prince William who agrees to help her save her kingdom and wake Aurora but, of course, falls in love with her instead (yay unnecessary love triangle!!). This happens, obviously, over the course of…an indiscernible amount of time but I’m gonna say about one or two weeks? Because a fortnight is totally true love. But apparently Isbe starts falling for him too even though she kind of still has feelings for Gil. Literally the entire transition from travel buddies to shameless flirting occurred in what was to the reader about one chapter while for the characters it was one week. On Aurora’s end, it’s even better! She meets Heath, a boy who longs to leave Sommeil, land of dreams, and believes whole-heartedly that Aurora is the key to getting out of there. Three days (one chapter) later, he has apparently changed his mind completely and is angry at Aurora and doesn’t want to leave. All because her parents tithed her voice and sense of touch from her to make her more beautiful and he therefore doesn’t want to live in such a corrupt kind of world (buddy, let me tell you something…). Oh, but then the next time we see him, the tension between them has grown, and amidst some talk about believing in true love, he tells her that she makes him want to believe in other worlds. Wait, I’m sorry, so, what were you believing in BEFORE she appeared in Sommeil? When you thought her sudden appearance was a key to something, hmm? Basically the relationships were like ships being tossed around in a storm, with no sense of how things really transitioned from one point to the next, save perhaps for Gil and Isbe’s relationship (which seems to be getting screwed over anyway because that’s how most potential best-friend relationships end up in YA books apparently). Individually, though, the characters showed some character growth, but nothing spectacular or unpredictable, and I think the most interesting character of all was probably Gilbert. And that’s just in comparison to everyone else, honestly. They were all just very…uninteresting and hard to really care for or connect with. Now, the writing itself has a lot to be said about. While the overall quality of it was decent, there were times when I felt like I was reading a textbook reciting of something, or in complete opposition, trying to understand an abstract idea being painted for me. These moments were not often, though, so luckily I was able to move past them easily and let the rest of the plot take over. However, I still have a few major issues that I feel the need to point out. First: this is a fantasy, taking place in a fantasy world, with fantasy kingdoms like Deluce and Aubin and fantasy seas filled with narwhals and fantasy creatures like fae. Fae, who apparently know what Rome is, because one of them went out of her way to design her home to replicate Roman baths. Statues of Adonis and Apollo and all. I’m sorry, but how did Rome exist in this world? Because if Rome existed then, technically…this should be Earth and these countries should be recognizable? Even if the names might be different because of magical influences, I should be able to figure out what they would be in our real world. But, because there is no recognizable landmarks or cultures or anything then…there shouldn’t be a Rome, right? After all, there is no reference at all to its existence in this world other than this fae’s apparent taste for its architecture. So how does she know what Rome is?! Did she hop through a portal and take some notes? Also, on that note, the story of Icarus is told briefly – a Greek story that should also not exist because guess what doesn’t exist in a made up world!!! That’s right, Greece! By the way, Daedalus was left out of the story so double the negative points on that one. Second: I know this story (Sleeping Beauty) comes from somewhere in France a long long time ago, but the literal translations of the names are killing me. Malfleur, the evil fae = “Bad Flower.” Belcoeur = “Beautiful Heart.” LaMorte, the country where Malfleur rules literally means “The Death.” Sommeil – a land of dreams – means “Sleep.” Heck, there’s a convent in a place called Isolé, aka “Isolated.” I mean, really? Third: Most of the chapters were told from either Isabelle’s or Aurora’s point-of-view, but once in a while there was someone else’s and a lot of these were faeries’. Aside from Malfleur and Belcoeur, and one called Binks (who actually provided a memory that was important to the story), the rest of these little POVs were vague, confusing, and more like brief impressions of the faeries just to paint a quick portrait of them but did absolutely nothing to further the plot and really could have easily been done without. In conclusion, this book was long and far too drawn out, with characters that were only vaguely interesting and relationship developments that bounced around like balls in a pinball machine. It was abstract and confusing at times, especially with the fae point of views, and there were just several things that irked me all the way through. Complete with an unnecessary love triangle, a plot and sub-plot that were dragged out beyond recognition, and characters that just did not spark much in terms of inspiration, I have to say this was very disappointing read.

#book review #spindle fire #lexa hillyer #egalley

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