Books and Ashes

What I liked: I loved the setting of the story and the way everything came together by the end. Ari is a strong character who has to overcome very bad odds after an accident that leaves her in a wheelchair, though it takes a while to figure out what that accident was. There's always interesting twist to the story, characters who are not who they say they are or characters who we had no idea about. The dream aspects were really interesting as well, and the action was done fantastically in such a compelling way that I read it from beginning to end almost without pause in five hours! Everything that went into the story was compelling and the secrets that get revealed were ones that made me want to turn the pages faster to keep reading, but slow down at the same time to savor what's happening at the same time! We get the sense that not all is as it seems from the beginning but we discover things with Ari little by little as she finds out more about the people who surround her and where she comes from. Damia and Sasha are characters who stood out even when they weren't in the scenes, I was always waiting for them to show back up because they interested me quite a lot by the time the story began to pick up.

What I didn't liked: I didn't feel like in the beginning I clicked with the book, I was rather confused by what's happening, why the people had such strange names, and why a guy was called Sasha. Seriously for several pages I though Sasha was a girl because I didn't know his actual name, which only gets mentioned once, and it threw me for a loop for quite a while since I thought the masculine pronoun was a typo or there was another character who was a guy who's name I missed. I would have liked to know his actual name earlier, it would have helped. Damia was too run-of-the-mill bad, I wanted a better reason for her to be angry with Ari than the ones given. The POV also switched unexpectedly while I was reading and it would throw me off initially but I learned to just go with it after a bit.

Overall Review: I loved this book, and thought I read Victoria Escober's book Peerless first and was blown away by everything in that book, I knew I had to bring my expectations lower since this was the author's first book. I'm glad I did because it allowed this book to blow me away as well, and even though I didn't love the beginning of this book I loved the rest of the book and I'm still loving this authors writing. Seriously, the author's writing is fantastic and her stories are amazing! With characters who surprise, twist that you don't see coming, and an amazing plot this book is something everyone should read if they can get into it! The ending is explosive and parts of this book can leave you with some feels, especially during the final battle.

Recommend?: Highly. This book is wonderfully written with a plot that can and will leave you wanting more when you reach the end!