It’s really nice to be able to read a sequel immediately after finishing its predecessor, especially for a series that you just started but one that others have been waiting months to get their hands on. It ends on a bittersweet note for me, however, as there will be another book following this one that I will have to wait a long time for. And the cliffhanger for Iron Flame was one that had me much more anxious to get to the next part of the story than the surprise I read at the end of Fourth Wing. Read no further unless you don’t mind spoilers.
I was glad that the story picked up right where it left off, with us learning how Brennan faked his death and joined the rebels. After I got over that unexpected twist, I was wondering how the rest of the story was going to go. It didn’t seem like going back to Basgiath was an option after what happened during the War Games. Violet and her squad were led into a trap by Colonel Aetos, a trap in which he expected all of them to die. After recovering for several days in rebel territory I couldn’t see how they would explain where they had been and why they had been gone for so long. Xaden and some of the other rebels came up with a plan, and it was actually pretty clever. It’s a good thing that the battle tactics were well written and made sense, because the ongoing fight between Xaden and Violet hardly does.
Here is where I go on a rant, I apologize in advance but I just need to say my piece. It’s understandable that Violet is mad at Xaden for keeping a few secrets, particularly the ones regarding their relationship, but she can’t expect him to tell her everything when he is protecting so many people with the very secrets she insists he reveal. She then chose to act the hypocrite when she started keeping secrets of her own, ones that she chose to not reveal to Xaden out of both secrecy and spite. She insisted on complete honesty between the two of them in order for her to consider removing the romantic hold she placed on their relationship, yet she herself becomes dishonest towards him. And the dialogue between the two of them gets increasingly frustrating the longer the fight drags on, to the point that I didn’t even care that it put their relationship on hold, I just wanted it to make a bit of sense. I’m pretty sure that at one point Violet herself questioned what they were fighting about, and if that’s not saying something about the irrationality of it all I can’t think of anything else that could make it clearer. They do stop fighting at some point and the plot gets going.
The last eight pages were where a bomb got dropped on us. A lot of stuff happened suddenly and all at once. Even though this series has been heavy on the death, killing established characters maliciously, I was still holding out for the good guys to overcome. I don’t know if that is going to happen now. There is going to have to be another huge twist or some kind of revelation in the next book for a certain character to survive what happened to them during the battle between riders and venin. I am kind of predicting an unhappy ending.
Nonfiction and Nonsense 