Crown of Feathers | Review

May their eternal flames burn bright. 

This book had one of the most prominent plot elements that guaranteed I would like it: Phoenixes. At least that's what I thought when it first fell on my doorstep in a lootbox over a year ago. I didnt immediately get to it, but in the months it sat on my shelf I realized something, the more I love something the more critical I am when it's in a story. 

Thankfully, this book still did not disappoint me!

Let's get the negative out of the way first.

Some of the set up wasn't well done. It made me lose interest so that when the good stuff started happening I had wished I would have paid better attention. In general toward the end with all the twists/ reveals I found myself regretting I wasn't more perceptive and took care to read the interlude notes and letters. 

Lastly I didn't quite understand the point of the male/ female disparity. I almost wonder if the author put it just because she wanted a parallel to how women have been unfairly treated in real life. Because besides women not being able to be riders in this new era, in the history women are strong and the greatest leaders. It actually seems like they are the most powerful, even saying that female phoenixes are the fiercer fighters and the only shadow mages we are aware of have been females. I just feel like this didn't have to exist in the story and rubbed me the wrong way. I'm just glad the author balanced it with really good male characters as well. Instead of choosing to create a world where every guy is bad and only women can do things, yet somehow are still disenfranchised. Like some really bad feminist novels/ movies have attempted. I thought it would take a different route and I wouldn't even include it when explaining and recommending it to other readers like it was to me.

What I liked:

Characters:

Most of the characters I liked. I don't think there was any I disliked. Veronyka had a brief stint of the cliched, "New person who is actually really talented and strong." Which leads to a disagreement and tension with another character. I was VERY thankful they got over this quickly and actually opened up to a very honest conversation about why this affected the characters. It sadly rare how well and often this characterization is done.

I was most interested in Zev and what he was doing. I think his point of view was unique and Im very intrigued to see what happens to him in the sequel. I hope he can find Kade again! I greatly appreciated the authors subtle representation of a queer character. Its not the point of him at all, he just happens to be queer.

Val was also incredibly compelling in her blunt, fierce attitude. I was always concerned yet curious what was going on with her.

Lore:

There was definitely a couple of info dumps, but it usually came up in relevance to what was happening. I'm intrigued with the world and as I said before wish I would have paid a little more attention to the interlude letters and such. But I think it makes a reread of this book all the more interesting! 

Plot:

I think the reveals of this book were insanely compelling and had me regretting I wasn't paying attention more in the earlier parts of the book. But I loved who these characters turned out to be and how they were all connected to each other by the end!

Conclusion:

I am very excited to see where our characters go from here. I look forward to more Phoenixes as this book had a lot of introduction to characters and the world but not alot of real communication with the phoenixes. I think we should be getting alot more from Val, and Zaphyra and Veronyka in the sequel. I know the second book is huge, and am fascinated to know what the author plans on revealing to us!