The Map of Bones (Fire Sermon, #2)

by Francesca Haig

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight
3.5*
This sequel picks up where The Fire Sermon ended, and while it took me a couple minutes to reacquaint myself with the characters, I remembered pretty much everything that went down in book one. (Which I won't tell you about, spoiler free here people.)

Anyway. The first half of the book, I won't lie, it was slow. Like, to the point that it seemed a bit repetitive and I was kind of bored. I felt like a lot of it was the same plot being rehashed, and that it was almost just filling space until the action began. That said, there were some new characters whose additions I enjoyed, so that kept me going during the first fifty to sixty percent.

But then things started to pick up quite a bit, and I felt like the story really took off again. The readers were given quite a bit of information on the world, which I loved, and the stakes got incredibly high. This series doesn't pull any punches- if the characters are being awful, there's not going to be sugar coating, and sometimes it can be hard to read, but it makes it feel much more authentic.

As the plot progressed and we got to know more about the world and the characters, I became very invested in the story again, and am very excited to see how the third book wraps things up! I have a feeling that there will be a lot of great secrets revealed, just as there were in this book.

Bottom Line: Despite a very slow beginning, this book does a great job of further developing a series that creates a very vivid picture of an eerie post apocalyptic world that keeps unraveling its secrets.

**Copy provided for review