Firewalker by Josephine Angelini Genre: Fantasy, Supernatural After I finished this book, I went back to my review on Trial by Fire and this is what I found: Lillian's character threw me into confusion and really triggered my interest in discovering more of the secrets she's hiding because I'm sure they won't disappoint! |
Worlds divide, magic slays, and love lies in the second book of Josephine Angelini’s The Worldwalker Trilogy.
"You think I’m a monster, but my choices, as ruthless as they seem, are justified."
Lily is back in her own universe, and she's ready to start a new life with Rowan by her side. True, she almost died in the Pyre that fueled their escape from New Salem, and must hide her magic for the safety of everyone she cares about, but compared to fighting the Woven, the monstrous creatures inhabiting the alternate Salem, life is looking pretty good.
Unfortunately, Lillian, ruthless ruler of the 13 Cities, is not willing to let Lily go that easily. If she can’t persuade Lily to return to her world, she will force her to come back by doing away with the ones she loves.
"You think I’m a monster, but my choices, as ruthless as they seem, are justified."
Lily is back in her own universe, and she's ready to start a new life with Rowan by her side. True, she almost died in the Pyre that fueled their escape from New Salem, and must hide her magic for the safety of everyone she cares about, but compared to fighting the Woven, the monstrous creatures inhabiting the alternate Salem, life is looking pretty good.
Unfortunately, Lillian, ruthless ruler of the 13 Cities, is not willing to let Lily go that easily. If she can’t persuade Lily to return to her world, she will force her to come back by doing away with the ones she loves.
I'm sure they won't disappoint!
I'm think I'm starting to hate myself.
For the first 100 pages, Rowan and Lily were nothing but fluff. So if it were up to me, I'll tell you this book would have been way shorter. And way more action-packed because shit doesn't happen until much later. Here's the good news and the bad news: The good news was that the pace picked up. Wanna hear the bad news? Well, nothing exactly exciting ever happens.
It is important that when you write, you know the direction you're going to take. It's even more important you know your characters well. The plot in this book is romance driven. You get a lot of Rowan and Lily. Then a little bit of plot as if the existence of 'plot' was finally remembered. It continues to go back to more Rowan and Lily. This is absolutely not my kind of books at all. Ultimately, I can see this book aims to be one that was filled with romance, action, strong relationships, doubt and mystery. Alas, it is not.
Angelini has created a very interesting world, a world with many possibilities for crazy adventures. But it continues to dwell on the romance aspect. World-building was neglected. You learn nothing new about this mysterious world of Lily's, and questions don't get addressed. As I found in the last book, mindspeaking was a poor excuse for not being able bond the characters together in what I would call 'natural' way - through experiences, understanding, communication. I'm not an unimaginative person that I can't accept the mindspeaking the author has created. But it seems as if the author can't stop exploiting that. She can't stop exploiting the fact that people can 'feel each other emotions' in mindspeak.
In my opinion villains are complex characters. It takes a lot of skill to craft them in a way readers see them as humans, someone readers can connect to on a certain level, someone readers understand but still disapprove of. How can a villain of that complexity be reached? Why through mindspeak of course!
For the first 100 pages, Rowan and Lily were nothing but fluff. So if it were up to me, I'll tell you this book would have been way shorter. And way more action-packed because shit doesn't happen until much later. Here's the good news and the bad news: The good news was that the pace picked up. Wanna hear the bad news? Well, nothing exactly exciting ever happens.
It is important that when you write, you know the direction you're going to take. It's even more important you know your characters well. The plot in this book is romance driven. You get a lot of Rowan and Lily. Then a little bit of plot as if the existence of 'plot' was finally remembered. It continues to go back to more Rowan and Lily. This is absolutely not my kind of books at all. Ultimately, I can see this book aims to be one that was filled with romance, action, strong relationships, doubt and mystery. Alas, it is not.
Angelini has created a very interesting world, a world with many possibilities for crazy adventures. But it continues to dwell on the romance aspect. World-building was neglected. You learn nothing new about this mysterious world of Lily's, and questions don't get addressed. As I found in the last book, mindspeaking was a poor excuse for not being able bond the characters together in what I would call 'natural' way - through experiences, understanding, communication. I'm not an unimaginative person that I can't accept the mindspeaking the author has created. But it seems as if the author can't stop exploiting that. She can't stop exploiting the fact that people can 'feel each other emotions' in mindspeak.
In my opinion villains are complex characters. It takes a lot of skill to craft them in a way readers see them as humans, someone readers can connect to on a certain level, someone readers understand but still disapprove of. How can a villain of that complexity be reached? Why through mindspeak of course!
I need to know because I need to know. You aren't my friend or my sister - you are me, aren't you, Lillian? |
This sooo does not sound like five-year-old kids playing hero and villain and totally does not sound like a cartoon made to entertain the little ones either. After all those grandmother stories, I totally can connect with Lillian on a certain level. Totally
Do you understand now, Lily? Do you understand why I can't explain what I had learned to anyone? Why I pushed Rowan away and wouldn't let him see my memories of the cinder world - not even to make him understand why I had to stop Alaric and his scientists? |
No. Well, at least it worked on Lily.
Yes, Lillian.You didn't trust yourself enough to only show part of the cinder-world memory. You were afraid Rowan would keep digging |
If I were to be very honest, nothing in the cinder world justified what she did when she came back to her world. There was an effort to make it look like everything that happened to her in the cinder world was bad enough to change her, but I find that there was almost no link at all. And none of it was reason enough to kill Rowan's father. River Fall's death was truly injustice done, no matter how I see it.
Does anyone remember Tristan? You know the one who lied to Lily, cheated on her, then said he never promised Lily anything and proceeded to stomp out of the room in all righteousness?
Does anyone remember Tristan? You know the one who lied to Lily, cheated on her, then said he never promised Lily anything and proceeded to stomp out of the room in all righteousness?
"It was decided for me," Tristan said quietly"Not too many Ivy League schools accept guys who are being questioned for their girlfriends mysterious disappearance, Lily," He laughed bitterly. |
Oh you poor thing! And for the record, you didn't bother for an apology to Lily either.
Miracles happen when Lily comes back. Everyone was human and normal before that. Now that Lily's back, she's miraculously cured and not to mention all her friends seem to have some kind of magical potential! Oh how convenient! In a place with zero magic, it does seem extremely likely. And yeah, expect another bunch of teens willing to go in to battle their lives out together with Lily as if they have no family who will care if they disappeared. Just leave a crappy note, I'm sure they will understand and respect our decision!
I'm a biased person. I have something against the name 'Rowan'. But I decided I need to get over that when I was reading this book. I'll just tell you straight, I'm pretty damn right that something is wrong with the guys named Rowan. Rowan, at first was a particularly okay character for me. As we went on, it just became obvious. Rowan was just another asshole. An extremely intrusive one at that. Every single person has a secret we simply do not share, no matter how much we love someone. These things just do not go out. We can never truly tell someone everything about ourselves. And for someone to pry, is simply rude and obscene. That is exactly what Rowan did.
Miracles happen when Lily comes back. Everyone was human and normal before that. Now that Lily's back, she's miraculously cured and not to mention all her friends seem to have some kind of magical potential! Oh how convenient! In a place with zero magic, it does seem extremely likely. And yeah, expect another bunch of teens willing to go in to battle their lives out together with Lily as if they have no family who will care if they disappeared. Just leave a crappy note, I'm sure they will understand and respect our decision!
I'm a biased person. I have something against the name 'Rowan'. But I decided I need to get over that when I was reading this book. I'll just tell you straight, I'm pretty damn right that something is wrong with the guys named Rowan. Rowan, at first was a particularly okay character for me. As we went on, it just became obvious. Rowan was just another asshole. An extremely intrusive one at that. Every single person has a secret we simply do not share, no matter how much we love someone. These things just do not go out. We can never truly tell someone everything about ourselves. And for someone to pry, is simply rude and obscene. That is exactly what Rowan did.
Will you show me what he did to you in the oubliette? |
I, on the other hand, feel that if someone doesn't accept that I can't share certain things with them yet, they should just get out of my life. You don't ask someone who got out of depression to share how she felt in that period. This is called being understanding, sensitive and even respectful.
Neither was Rowan good at being loyal. Give me a whole day, I can list everything I dislike about him. So unfortunately, I do not ship them at all.
Lily was a mess herself. She is the most indecisive and insufferable protagonist I have ever read about. She simply doesn't think through her course of actions at all, she doesn't see how valuable the information she has will be as a leverage against her 'enemy'. Lily just spit it all out without thinking, not even of the consequences, she isn't even sure which side is she on. Her thoughts mainly lie on Rowan and the rest of her ideas are definitely less than rational. So it is of course expected the plot would not fair better either.
For me, the excitement factor has clearly disappeared in this book. A Woven is nothing new anymore, their appearances are staggered in such a subtle but systematic way, it has lost its charm. You know to expect a Woven when the characters are doing almost nothing. Fact. The author wants to make this seem action-packed even as they simply walk around. The group just jump on the Woven bad-assly kill it despite a month of training or so and wala. The only difference with each attack is that it happens with a different Woven. Wovens attacking just gets old. In the first book, when the crew stumble upon a Woven, I'm holding my breath, at the edge of my seat. Now, I just get: Oh wow another Woven.
I could say this book was a bit of a guilty pleasure. The feeling you know this is absurd but you just want to continue to see how absurd it can get. At the end, things does start to pick up a bit which I would consider something that was again: nothing new. Expect to deal with unnecessary/deliberate character deaths, a lot of romance, mild action, and getting tired of Lillian (and even Lily sometimes). With the way this book went, it's only logical that I not read the last book. Unfortunately, I'm too curious to just end this series here. I really have to give the author the credit of that sort of ending again.
Neither was Rowan good at being loyal. Give me a whole day, I can list everything I dislike about him. So unfortunately, I do not ship them at all.
Lily was a mess herself. She is the most indecisive and insufferable protagonist I have ever read about. She simply doesn't think through her course of actions at all, she doesn't see how valuable the information she has will be as a leverage against her 'enemy'. Lily just spit it all out without thinking, not even of the consequences, she isn't even sure which side is she on. Her thoughts mainly lie on Rowan and the rest of her ideas are definitely less than rational. So it is of course expected the plot would not fair better either.
For me, the excitement factor has clearly disappeared in this book. A Woven is nothing new anymore, their appearances are staggered in such a subtle but systematic way, it has lost its charm. You know to expect a Woven when the characters are doing almost nothing. Fact. The author wants to make this seem action-packed even as they simply walk around. The group just jump on the Woven bad-assly kill it despite a month of training or so and wala. The only difference with each attack is that it happens with a different Woven. Wovens attacking just gets old. In the first book, when the crew stumble upon a Woven, I'm holding my breath, at the edge of my seat. Now, I just get: Oh wow another Woven.
I could say this book was a bit of a guilty pleasure. The feeling you know this is absurd but you just want to continue to see how absurd it can get. At the end, things does start to pick up a bit which I would consider something that was again: nothing new. Expect to deal with unnecessary/deliberate character deaths, a lot of romance, mild action, and getting tired of Lillian (and even Lily sometimes). With the way this book went, it's only logical that I not read the last book. Unfortunately, I'm too curious to just end this series here. I really have to give the author the credit of that sort of ending again.