Simultaneously loved and hated it
By love, I mostly mean the idea of it. Premise whise, I was so excited and held high hopes for this. I don't, as a personal rule leave reviews under three stars but I had to force myself to finish this and can't bring myself to give it more than two. The rest of the review contains potential spoilers as I don't think I can fully explain why I didn't like this without them.
I don't think it's that spoilery to mention Phoenixes, and I love them, they're one of my favorite supes, so I was so ready for a book with a Phoenix as the mc.
This didn't deliver. The main character is annoying and juvenile and while some of the naivete is understandable, other parts aren't. I actually don't mind weak heroines or damsel in distress tropes, and that's not the issue, her personality just didn't make sense to me.
How is she aware enough to know she's not normal and that the mistreatment isn't normal but not able to realize that she's not evil and deserves love and happiness? And that particular plot point seemingly disappears as soon as she turns 18, I guess because she finally realized she was lied to?
And her trauma is just not handled realistically at all. I'm not a psychologist but I have studied it.
I would imagine someone having survived that situation would potentially have one of two core personality traits maybe even both interlapping.
One, anger at everything they've been through, the people that mistreated them, the world, possibly even themselves, maybe even the mates for not rescuing them. Prone to lashing out and mistrustful because of it.
Or two, timid/scared. Easily frightened, wanting to run away, won't make eye contact, also mistrustful. Prone to being quiet, flinching, and hiding.
Happy go lucky, bright and cheery just doesn't fit, given her background. It's like she was created with the emotional capacity of a child.
Like I said, the naivete makes sense in some context, but since she was partially educated and had things to read, and was constantly abused, if anything it would make sense for her to be more logical/clinical than emotional and to analyze things more by facts and what's presented and possibly be socially awkward and not even fully aware of that awkwardness. And along with that clinicalness she would most likely be adverse to touching, given that all her physical interactions were violent. She was socially awkward, I'll give her that, but clearly realized it, and had barely any problems with cuddling and touching. She was naive about sex and social situations, the fact that she was told about sex and apparently had the threat of sexual abuse hanging over her, should've made her more aware of sexual situations. The naive to social interactions/cues make sense, but I stand with her open, honest, cheerfulness isn't realistic.
There's some implausible scenarios as well. Like Jed and the Mom sending her to a rich school that just happens to have a lot of shifters at it. If Jed supposedly has all this money, we find out later from clubs, then why does he live in a rundown trailer? How were they able to even get her in school when she apparently has no social, birth certificate, or any records at all? A lot of schools won't let students attend without having at least one round of vaccines, from my understanding, but that wasn't a problem?
How did she know when her birthday was? And of course it ended up being a day early, but how'd she even know.
How was Jed, supposedly a normal human, able to get into a guarded house with 6 dragons and drag off the mc and have her long enough for them to kill her? Like I know it's a fantasy book but if these dragons are so badass, shouldn't they have sensed something?
The council wanting her to meet other dragons doesn't fully make sense. If the mate thing is such a big deal and everyone knows how possessive and protective dragons are of their mates, why would that even be an issue, especially when she's confirmed it. It feels like that was added in to cause me drama.
The father at the end, he snidely remarks that she has no birth certificate to prove she's 18, yet if he has no paperwork to prove his connection to her, and it's clear they aren't biologically related than the human authorities would most likely never take any claim on her seriously and arrest him, especially if she reveals her mistreatment. Also how was he able to get away with hiding her for so long?
I'll give it that the mystery of the cult was interesting but that's about it. A lot of the characters are one dimensional tropes. The mc is unrealistic and the story is convoluted. Plus a few antagonists with unclear motives, or just deranged like the Mom and Becky.
I feel bad for giving this such a low rating but with all these things that just don't make sense plot whise, I can't recommend it. I know I probably won't finish this series, but hopefully it gets better for those that do.