Firewalker (Worldwalker Trilogy, #2)

by Josephine Angelini

[ladygrey]

This is a bit of a difficult review to write because I read all three books in the trilogy in basically two days (reread 1 and jumped right into 2 and 3). So it's a lot easier to think of the story as a whole rather than individual books.

Which is to Angelini's credit that the trilogy fuses together and connects well enough to really be one large story.

That being said, 2 wasn't what I expected at all after I read Trial by Fire the first time. I thought it was going to be all high school and romance and magic juxtaposed into our contemporary world and Tristan having to deal with this new Lily and with Rowan and all sorts of dramatic craziness. Instead it's all rational and logical and "she's been missing for three months so the authorities are involved" which presents a new threat and everyone accepts everything so easily. This book is definitely the turn in the tone of the story because 80% of the entire rest of the trilogy is going to be: claim people - run then fight or fight then run. It's all action and those quiet moments from the first book of the characters at rest, talking, doing magic or learning magic are few and far between. There's no more parties or social intrigue vs. the political intrigue. It's all "the end of the world as we know it!" It was a little more serious when I wanted it to be a little more fun.

What I did like were the moments with Lillian. Sharing her memories of the cinder world and really understanding what set her on the path that led to Trial by Fire turned out to be interesting. It took the idea of a sympathetic antagonist and didn't just show the reader what made her sympathetic but also showed Lily. Suddenly, even though Lillian still made drastic hyper-controlling choices, she wasn't the bad guy. more on that in [b:Witch's Pyre|23008469|Witch's Pyre (Worldwalker, #3)|Josephine Angelini|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1473881663l/23008469._SX50_.jpg|42575331] though....

And that ending! I put the second book down and picked the third one up right away so things kind of blend together. I didn't believe it for the longest time. Because this is fantasy that is... drastic. For the longest time I kept waiting for it to be undone. Which, I mean, what she was going for totally worked. But then the third book changes everything and I wasn't upset so much by what happened as by how I felt about it. Which also, good for Angelini for pulling that off. But it all just kind of sucked.

The overall problem, for me, with this book is that while there were some lines I definitely liked (but can't remember now) there were no moments that really shined and captured my attention. It was just another piece of the story I needed to find out what happened.