Flamefall

Oh my GOD.

The way that this book took everything the first book did and dialed it up by ELEVEN. I was on the edge of my seat almost the entire time I was reading. The absolute pervading tension had my stomach in KNOTS.

The plot of this book can't be summed up easily at all, but a repeating theme that I found is that all the characters, especially Lee, Annie, and Griff in the POV chapters, keep asking themself Am I doing the right thing? And that seems to be the main focus of this book. How far will you go for the greater good? How many atrocities will you commit to win the war? Is what you're doing even protecting anyone in the end, or is it just making them hate you?

Most of the rest of this will be spoilers.

The fact that the exiled dragonlords even HAVE “peasant” dragon riders is just. So hypocritical of them. They espouse their way of life and assert that the serfs are lower than them, but when they want more power they're still willing to throw them into the saddle? By muzzling their dragons of course, which is all kinds of horrific, but it's also shooting themselves in the foot. By muzzling sparked dragons you're compromising the power of your own fleet and giving Callipolis the advantage. It truly speaks to the way their arrogance has made them completely blind.

On Annie and Lee: boy HOWDY are we fighting for this romance. Rosaria Munda is giving slowburn an entirely new definition in this book. We are once again one step forward and two steps back; every time they make progress they get in their OWN WAY. And the conflicts are real and genuine: Lee siding with the Passi not only because he hates Atreus but because his eyes have truly been opened around the dragonlords of the past. Even if they were his family he wants to be nothing like them. Annie wants to prove that she deserves to be Firstrider even as a former “peasant”, and she knows that hard and difficult choices must be made for the good of all during war. They're both just trying to do the right thing, and it's driving them away from each other through no real fault of their own.

On Griff and Delo: oh these two are just destined to end in tragedy. Julia and Griff's whole storyline seeming more nonconsensual the longer he thinks about her after her death, the more he realizes how different Delo treats him even when they WEREN'T together. Griff feeling the stirs of rebellion from the very beginning and Delo, not being able to/not willing to help him by going against his family, but still loving him so, SO much that he risks everything. Bringing Griff's family food and medicine and new shoes. Freeing the trapped Norcian children to save them and flying Griff's niece and nephew home personally. Risking his entire position and maybe even LIFE by copying the key to Sparker's chains to give to Griff. I hope so dearly that these two get to live happily ever after but with them both basically imprisoned by the end of the book and, with the general “down with ALL the dragonlords” sentiments of the other side, I really doubt it.

Power continues to be an enigma. I'd like to say I saw him falling for Annie coming but I really didn't because I thought it was a crackship moment for me, but he actually DID have feelings for her. Annie and Lee have never been a question though, so I knew they would never actually get together. I'm still puzzled on his motivations; he hides behind that patrician mask and his sky-high walls so much that it's hard to see that he's a good guy underneath all that, even though he undoubtedly is. I hope he gets a happy ending too.

Final thoughts: I hope all the exiled Dragonborn except Delo die horrific deaths for what they put everyone through, I really need an “I love you” between Annie and Lee for my own sanity, and that cliffhanger was absolutely criminal. Going to take the rest of the day to rest my brain but trust I WILL be reading the third book tomorrow.