Fireborne (THE AURELIAN CYCLE) Paperback – December 29, 2020

This series had me hooked from page one! The strong female lead is everything I want in a protagonist—fierce, intelligent, and deeply relatable as she navigates challenges with resilience and wit. The world-building is immersive, and the dragons are majestic, terrifying, and beautifully written. But what truly set this series apart for me was the theme of chosen family—watching the characters form unbreakable bonds through hardship and triumph made the story even more compelling. If you love fantasy that balances action, heart, and unforgettable characters, this series is a must-read!

So, Fireborne is a good book. I saw on Booktok that it’s “better than Fourth Wing” but I don’t even think you can honestly compare the two. They’re so vastly different.Fireborne main characters seemed oddly grown up for being in their late teens, which I actually didn’t mind. Would be cool to have characters whose maturity levels matched their ages though. (Personal opinion)It goes into detail about the inner workings of their society without getting nitty gritty which was nice. It’s not a snatch your soul/can’t put it down book, but it’s a good read.The writing reminds me of how people write in a diary, and it threw me off at first. No smut as the characters are under 18. (Which feels relevant bc of the Fourth Wing comparison lol)I also can’t help but feel like I’ve been thrown into a series half way? To start at the end of a competition feels like I missed a book. It’s an odd starting place for a series. IMO.Overall I think the plot is interesting and the vernacular used was a nice change of pace from most YA books. I’ll be reading the sequel to see how things unfold.

Exciting book that is part of a trilogy. I was able to share with my daughter who is 12. It is a fun book for adults and children.

What I can say for this book is that the political structure was actually quite intriguing to read. It felt real and I can appreciate that.Even the section about the food rations hit me in the gut because they're trying to justify it as "the lesser than two evils" but the act in itself will only be seen as evil. Also, screw the Gold society, just saying.However, what this book lacked was more about the dragons and emotional depth. It focused so hard on "what is right and evil vs what is evil and just evil" using Lee and Annie's perspective and I couldn't help but feel they didn't help the story as young as they are. The slow burn was there, I'm fine with that, but the connection between these two was missing for me. I was told more about how they cared for one another and I would have liked more shown when their scenes came up and of course, more dialogue to really build relationships. They're supposed to be best friends, and yet they had a lot of problems just talking to one another until the end.I also really liked Duck, but can't remember much about anyone else. I believe Annie's perspective, only, would have been better. She had the most growth, wasn't blind to the propaganda and how she reflected on it and the choices being made. I preferred her care for Lee more than what I read from Lee, and I liked her relationship with her dragon more. She also has some good back story to really build on the experience from the old regimen compared to the new and coming to terms understanding Lee.Some of the information, like how the cousin impacted Lee, wasn't really needed and would have served better from Annie's point of view.

Overall I enjoyed the story. The prose was often clunky or labored, but the story was compelling enough. I enjoyed the character development. The story was sad at times, but still good. The premise was solid. The author could do more to create cliff hangers and questions. It also took a long time to get into the story.

Fireborne is a novel heavily influenced by the classics: the author gives credit to Homer and Plato, whose works spurred her on in writing this novel. There is a sense of gravitas in this book, of richness and complexity. There’s an epic-level plot that involves a nation in transition even ten years after revolution upended the social and political order; and at the same time the new leaders of the country retain a keen appreciation of the poetry and lore that guided and enriched the lives of the country’s people before the revolution. All the book’s characters are part of a fledgling civic order that has formed in the wake of this bloody revolution. The old patrician ways have been ruthlessly destroyed, and new hierarchies have been imposed by the coup’s winners. No longer are citizens born into privilege or poverty; instead, young teens now test into various strata of society named after metals, with gold at the top and iron at the bottom, and a busy office of propaganda works overtime to make all metals seem important to the health of the whole country. It is not a perfect system; one character’s younger sister tests poorly due to dyslexia, and is shuffled into the iron group when her intelligence and aptitude might have earned her a better placement if the system were better. The old system’s wealthy and privileged dragon-riding ruling class and powerful triad of leaders has given way to a single ruler who eschews outward displays of riches and instead strives to build a new more egalitarian world.The main characters in this novel are the teens who make up the reformed dragon-riding core in this post-revolution state. Some years have passed since the onset of the bloodshed, and although all of the dragon-riders come from different backgrounds and areas around the country, they all remember the losses they or their families sustained during wartime. Lee and Annie, two of these riders, alternate the narrative point of view in Fireborne. Antithetical in background before the revolution, they both ended up orphaned and alone, and their friendship grows more important and deep as passing years take them into their teenage years. They ride the same type of dragon, and they are among the best riders in their country. Readers can empathize and identify with both narrative points of view, become invested in the lives of both protagonists.The novel’s actions center around how the past informs the present. Lee and Annie, the two main characters, in a less skillful writer’s hands, would be lovers and heroes from the first pages. They are members of the opposite sex, thrown into crisis after crisis, and beset by antagonists from within and without their close-knit group of dragon-riders. But as readers we luck out. Lee and Annie are complex, fully-realized characters with conflicted motives and uneasy reactions to orders than go against their respective values. The novel could easily be a stand alone, as the ending is satisfying and interesting, but I myself am delighted that it is billed as “book one.” I eagerly await book two!