Burning Glass (Burning Glass, #1)

by Kathryn Purdie

Review originally posted at Simply Adrift.

When I picked up Burning Glass, I wasn't sure what I expected but what I got also didn't seem to meet the expectations I had.

Auraseer's

As an auraseer, Sonya has the ability to feel aura's around her and know what everyone is feeling. Except her powers are different, she can also feel the auras of animals and the pain of death if she touches something dead. For example the fur of a wolf on her clothing, she can't eat meat because she can feel how the animal died. Her powers aren't usual for an auraseer.

As soon as her powers manifested as a child her parents sent her off with the travelling folk, the Romska,  in the hopes no one would notice her powers and take advantage of her. Except this meant Sonya grew up trying to hide her powers rather than train them and learn to control them. By the time her powers grew out of control, she was discovered and sent to the convent where auraseers train to control their power. Except, she hated it and didn't pay much attention. Months later, one night this leads to Sonya being out of control, locking the other auraseers up and ends up with the convent burning to the ground and most of the auraseers dying.

The royalty has an auraseer to keep them safe, when one dies the oldest auraseer from the convent replaces her and becomes the new Sovereign auraseer. The morning after the tragedy, the royals appear in the convent with the news that the queen was poisoned and as the auraseer failed to protect her she was now dead. They need to collect the oldest auraseer to become the new Sovereign Auraseer to the new Emperor. Because of this tragedy, Sonya is now the oldest albeit mostly untrained and unfit. But she can not deny the command.

The Emotions

As soon as you pick up this book you're thrown into a world of emotion. Sonya feels so much and so many emotions around her, it's really hard to read. Sonya was flitting from one emotion to the next as she was affected by them, it was hard to keep up and it made my head spin. This happened throughout most of the book and I didn't really enjoy it.

It was really hard to like Sonya because she was so weak with her powers, she could barely control them, she was constantly being affected by other peoples emotions around her that I felt like nothing was genuine from her. I cringed whenever she talked about her aura merging with the Emperor's aura, I felt like it was too much. The way she wanted the Emperor to give her attention was so frustrating.

Insta-love?

I was rather disappointed by this.

The insta-love wasn't sappy or in-your-face, but mostly it was Sonya getting a crush on Anton straight away. Soon she her eyes were constantly 'looking for him in the room', or her gaze always 'searched him out'. It was really frustrating the way she obviously sought him out all the time.

And then it's only half way through the book that she discovers she's in love with him?! Seriously? I was so annoyed by this! It's plainly obvious to the reader she has feelings for Anton, so it was annoying finding out she seemed to be completely oblivious to them.

Overall

I was not impressed with Burning Glass, I didn't like Sonya much and I couldn't connect with her. The fact she could never quite figure out her own emotions was frustrating. Every character in this book called Sonya 'strong' because she was the only one that could 'stand up the the emperor'. Well you know what? That wasn't strength, that was simply because she knew he had a soft spot for her and wouldn't harm her like he harmed others. There was no danger to her if she stood up to him.

The ending was a little left field for me. Everything happened at once and at random, there wasn't much of a build up and I felt like it was over before it really begun.

The Burning Glass just wasn't what I thought it would be. The story wasn't anything like I expected, in a pretty bad way.

Have you read this book? Did you like it? Or do you feel the same as me?

Always,
Jordon

This review was originally posted on Simply Adrift