A Shadow Bright and Burning (Kingdom on Fire, #1)

by Jessica Cluess

[Chelsea]

Actual Rating 2.5

I'm finding this a hard review to write. There was nothing overly wrong with this book, I think I just didn't connect with it because it was SUCH a typical YA fantasy. Nothing about this book felt original. I'm also getting really tired of the "chosen one" trope and it's used quite a bit in A Shadow Bright and Burning. Normally this would be exactly my kind of book but it just didn't work for me at all.

At the beginning we find out Henrietta has the magical power of bursting into flame while her clothes don't burn off her. That would be too inconvenient for this story and there was absolutely nothing inconvenient about the entire plot. Anyways, Henrietta gets swept off to live in a fancy house with the other sorcerers because she's *gasp* the only female sorcerer living. Not to mention the only female character in the whole book? Enter special snowflake trope. Her character at the start of the book wansn't too bad but the farther the story went the more annoying she got. She started off strong and lost her character along the way.

I also need to talk about the weird love triangle (square?) we had going on. I'm still not sure who the actual love interest of the story was? There were way too many guys interested and Henrietta just kind of floated from boy to boy without anything actually happening. I guess it makes sense sine there was apparently no other girls in this fantasy world. Magnus somehow does a complete 180. He's cocky and fun at the start and eventually turns into a total ass (that's all I can say without spoiling anything) but then he and Henrietta are bffs again by the end. It makes no sense.

Basically this whole book felt like little pieces of one big story without all the connecting elements that would make it a full story. Too many little things were going on and the important things, like the information about the ancients, were just kind of thrown into the story at random moments with not enough detail. If you've never read much YA fantasy then you might like this one. Otherwise, this book wasn't anything special.