Edit 1-30-20: I upped my rating to five stars because, while I can objectively look at it and point out a few issues, I freaking love this book. Every time I think about it I smile, and I've thought about it a lot since I finished reading it. It's absolutely one of my favorite new romances.

Original review
I am having so much fun reading romance right now. I loved this so much. I don't think I have ever, EVER laughed so much while reading a book. The banter among the book club is so good, and I love how supportive they all were for each other.

I am a sucker for a second-chance romance, and even though this one is a little different because the characters are already married, I had a great time watching them fall in love all over again.

I love that this book doesn't shy away from struggles that real couples face everyday. The hero being an MLB player adds another level to their conflicts, but at the end of the day there are countless couples out there who have trouble being open about intimacy and the emotional and physical support that they need from their partners, and I think it was nice to see this couple tackling those issues.

This was so close to a five-star read for me. The characters were fantastic, the story was fun, and most of the dialogue was spot on. However, there are a few moments that just don't feel authentic to me when the guys are all talking about society and toxic masculinity. Not that I think that men can't have actual discussions about these topics in a sincere way, but the way these messages were relayed in this book felt almost like a textbook definition. The way the characters would be having a conversation and then one would spout off for an entire paragraph about the societal evils of toxic masculinity just didn't feel natural. There were two or three moments that really stuck out to me as being very stilted and I wish the author had reworked the dialogue a little there to make it seem a little smoother and more in the voice of the characters I otherwise loved.
Also, the end was a little over-the-top cheesy, but I forgive it because at the end of the day, this is a romantic comedy. I could absolutely see this as a movie and I can't wait for the companion novel with Liv and Mack.

So...this was fine. I thought there were some really interesting aspects to the world and the phoenix magic. But I just never bought all the way in. I felt like I was being kept at a distance from the characters.

I thought the choice to write one of the POVs in second person was really strange. It seemed to serve no purpose other than to differentiate between the two female protagonists.

I’m interested enough to possibly read the sequel in a year, this felt like a less brutal, watered-down Hunger Games. I honestly don’t think I’ll think much about this book after today, and I’m not sure that’s fair to the book, but it is what it is.

Third Read Feb. 1, 2020
Re-read in preparation for the third and final book coming out this month, Ember Queen. This book is still great. The most common criticism I see of this series is that it's very reminiscent of other YA fantasy series, and while I guess I see what they are getting at, I just feel like the writing here is so much better than a lot of hyped YA fantasies out there right now. The me from March 2019 said she'd give that read 4 stars. She must've been having a rough day, because this is still a 5-star book for me.


Re-read March, 2019, in preparation for Lady Smoke, the second book in the series. I still enjoyed this quite a bit. I listened to the audiobook this time around. It was okay, but there are a few parts where multiple voices come in chanting that is a little strange. I do appreciate that they tried to do something a little different, but I’m not sure it worked.
I would probably give this book closer to 4 stars on re-read, but maybe that’ll because I already knew what was going to happen.

Original review May 10, 2018:
I've received a lot of books in subscription boxes that have surprised me, and Ash Princess can be added to the list. I hadn't actually heard that much about this book before the release, but the cover is fantastic and it's a YA political fantasy. So...please and thank you.

I went into the book with very few expectations, and I was thoroughly blown away. This was really entertaining. I loved the world, the characters, the socio and geo-political aspects. It all worked for me.

So I was really surprised to come onto Goodreads after finishing the book and see so many 2 and 3-star ratings. Most of them criticized the book as being 'just another tropey YA fantasy with a love triangle.' They said that if you've read any number of other YA fantasies, you've read Ash Princess. And while I completely respect that other people may have a different opinion and it doesn't make mine (or theirs) any more or less valid, I just don't get it. I feel like I read a completely different book.

I'm not going to sit here and say that the premise was wholly unique, because I don't think that's true. A young princess loses her family when her country is invaded and she fights to free her people. I know that there are many YA fantasy books that have similar concepts. But I feel like where this story separates itself is with the details of the world, the cultures, the characters. I felt like the author did a wonderful job making this world unique. She thought about things like fashion, food, art, music, and history when creating the Astrean and Kalovaxian cultures. The world was rich and interesting. Now, we only got to see a small slice of it in this book because Theo was kept under guard for most of this book, but the foundation was built in this book and I'm excited to see where we go from here.

Another way this book differs from many other 'YA princess stories' is in it's brutality. This is not light and fluffy. Our main character is repeatedly tortured by her captors for a decade, whipped bloody every time the kaiser (the man who invaded her country) wants to quell any hint of an uprising in her people or punish her when there is an incident involving her people. Her maid has had her mouth sewn shut. The stitches are taken out so she can eat and then it's sewn back shut. People are enslaved and brutally murdered on both sides and the depiction of these things is not watered down.

The characters are complex and interesting. Theo in particular is not your average, run-of-the-mill heroine, despite what other reviews may say. Instead of using magic or physical prowess, she must use her wits and knowledge of the players involved to navigate her situation. Of course, her emotions are not all as straightforward as she would like to pretend they are, and people she has come to rely on are also people she knows are enemies to her people, which makes for some very difficult decisions. I loved the conflict that she felt, and how honest she was with herself about them.

As far as the love triangle goes, yeah, there is one. Some people hate love triangles with a burning passion. I don't have a problem with them as long as they aren't poorly written. I need to feel that there is a chance that she could end up with either one of the love interests, and I need to understand why they would be attracted to her.

In this book, I get it. I get why she would feel a connection with Blaise, and he with her. They've known each other since they were young and they are trying to save their people and help each other through their respective traumas. I also get why there would be a connection between Theo and Soren. They've also known each other for years, although he's been away for several years prior to the beginning of this book. I think he sees in her a way to break away from his father and make his own way. He doesn't want to become his father and the treatment that Theo has received is a tangible representation of everything he hates about his father, so that in turn makes him want to protect Theo. I think he also has a lot of respect for her and the way she carries herself after everything she's been through. He already admires her before they even really get to know each other. It may seem a little insta-lovey to some, but it just didn't bother me that much, especially because there are different layers to their relationship that make it more complex than just an ooey, gooey romance.

As far as the plot goes, this is definitely more of a foundational book. There are many internal plots regarding Theo and her decision to finally fight back and help her people, but I have a feeling the next installments will have quite a bit more action in them. And I'm totally okay with that. This first book's purpose was to introduce the world, the characters, and their struggles. And I think she did a fantastic job.

I'm so glad I didn't look at the reviews before reading this book, because I might have chosen to skip it instead, and that would've been a shame.

Edit: re-read Feb 2, 2020 Still love this book as much as the first time. Can’t wait for Ember Queen in two days!!


Original review: People need to stop sleeping on this series. It’s so good! Political intrigue, interesting magic system, flawed characters you want to root for. I think I may prefer this second installment to the first, which isn’t a common thing with second books.

Theo is a great protagonist. She is strong-willed and intelligent, using her wits to navigate the murky political landscape. She is surrounded by a bunch of people (mostly men) who are trying to use her for their own gain and she is not having any of it.
There is a scene I particularly like where a ruler is explaining to her that she is going to have to prove her purity (virginity) before she can be married off to anyone. She states that in her culture there is no importance placed on chastity and that if she is to adhere to such an affront to her privacy then she expects the man she might consent to marry also undergo an exam to test his purity.
There is one WTF moment with Theo that I wish had been handled differently, because her actions felt out of character for her and like they were done simply to move the plot along, but I felt like it could’ve been done in a more believable way.

I love the found family aspect of this book as well, and how people who wouldn’t normally have anything in common are compelled to work together toward a common purpose.

This second book expands on the world introduced in Ash Princess in a big way. I like that we see cultures that are completely different from both the Kalavaxian and Astrean cultures. Some are led by women, some men. Some are inherited while others are elected. There is even a kingdom that is ruled by religious oligarchy. Each of these countries were culturally unique and I really appreciated that.

I also appreciated the fact that this book had several characters who identified as something other than straight, and that it wasn’t treated as a shocking thing.

I would tell anyone who thinks this will just be a copycat of numerous other ‘kingdom fantasy’ series to give the first book a try. I found myself flying through this book and cannot wait for the conclusion.

This is a very difficult book to review. Almost as difficult as it was to read. I've been reading more non-fiction in the past couple of years, and I've found that I enjoy memoirs that detail unorthodox living environments/situations. The Glass Castle is one I read in 2019 and really hooked me, and this definitely has some similarities to that one. Both families live alternative lifestyles in which authority is seen as an annoyance at the very best, and an evil empire at the worst. In both stories, the children seem to be more mature than the adults, and the adults seem to be more interested in their own selfish whims and ideologies than providing a safe and secure upbringing for the people they chose to bring into the world.
This book was such a tough thing to read. As someone who grew up in a village in Alaska, I knew people who were into the idea of living off the land and off the grid. There are so many people who move to Alaska from the Lower 48 because they think it'll be a way for them to eschew authority and make their own way. As unbelievable as so many of the situations and personalities in this book seemed, I never once questioned the veracity of the author's claims, because I've known people who have acted similarly. Doesn't make it easier to read.

There are so many trigger warnings in this book. Where do I begin? Rape, sexual assault, grooming, molestation, extensive drug and alcohol abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, abandonment. The list goes on and on. Please, if you're at all sensitive to these topics, take care.

I appreciate the author for telling her story in such a candid way, but there were moments where it felt like she was very disconnected from the events she was relating to the reader. It makes sense, as some of these things were absolutely horrific, but there were moment that felt a little detached. I was so angry at all of the adults in Cea's life who failed her, especially her mother. But then I got to thinking about the cycle of abuse and how her mother was set up to fail by her own parent's lack of involvement or care in her upbringing. There's a moment in the book where one of Cea's relatives (I believe it was her grandfather) tells her that she was never really a part of his family. This was after a time when he told her that he didn't really care what she and her mother had been doing when they were separated from the family for over a year. That lack of concern or care is heartbreaking to read about, and it provided insight for me as far as Cea's mother's ability (or inability) to provide care to Cea.

If I have one real criticism, it's that the last couple sections of the book, after Cea begins her modeling career, felt rushed. We got so much detail about her childhood, which was great. But her adult life was rushed through and I would've liked to see some of those details about her reconciliation with her father and coming to terms with the dysfunctional nature of her childhood. Apparently the author was working on a second memoir that focuses more on her adult life, but that was announced a couple years back and I don't see anything recent about it, so maybe the project was shelved.

I feel like I'm rambling so I'm just going to close this by saying that I appreciate what this book was, and even when my heart was hurting for the young Cea or angry at the people around her, I was utterly fascinated by the story.

I haven't read this book in probably at least 25 years. I want to give it to my son to read and decided that I wouldn't mind a re-read.

This book stands up, especially when you consider the target audience. It makes this tragic part of human history a little more digestible for young people. It doesn't shy away from the atrocities that were occurring in Europe during WWII, but it isn't graphic. It explains what happened in a way that is personal and small-scale, yet in a way that you understand that situation would've been just one of countless experiences.

I can't wait to share this with my son and talk to him about it.

I'm not sure what I just read, but I think I enjoyed it?

This is such a weird and unique story, and I don't want to say too much about it because I think it's one of those books where the less you know going in the better. I love the creepy atmosphere the author evokes and the setting is very disturbing.

The only thing that I didn't like was that there were so many characters all thrown into this situation and not much set up, so I found myself occasionally confused until I learned more about these characters.


This is so different from the other book I've read by this author, I Am Still Alive. I like that she's showing range in the types of stories she's telling. It makes me very curious to she what she comes out with next.

I don't have a ton to say about this novella. I'm not much of a novella reader, but I wanted to get something read today and this is only about 50 pages, so it took next to no time to get through. I liked the epistolary structure of this story -- it's told in letters being sent between a man and woman whose spouses are cheating with each other.

I won't say anything else as it's only 50 pages long and I wouldn't want to spoil anything. I could absolutely see this as a movie or a full-length book, but I also think it worked fine as is.

TJR isn't a fave of mine, but this was fine.

I received this as an e-ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. A sincere thank you to them for that opportunity.

I was initially excited about this story centering around a young Asian-American woman wanting to connect with her heritage. I thought the first chapter was cute and quirky. I thought it told us a lot about her and her father in a way that was informative without being an info-dump of exposition.
Unfortunately, it went downhill from that point.

My biggest issue with this book was with Iris, our protagonist. She is perhaps the dumbest and most willfully-ignorant character I've ever read about. EVER. It felt like there was an attempt made to make her a Cher-Horowitz-type character, but it just didn't work. She lacked the care Cher has for the people around her. She was vapid, self-absorbed, and unapologetic in her disinterest and disdain for the people and situations going on around her. I spent a good deal of time before writing this review trying to figure out what the purpose of this character was. Are we supposed to start out disliking her and then as she matures we learn to love her? If that's the case, it failed. Her 'transformation' was far too little, too late. Are we supposed to find her ignorance quirky and fun? Again, it didn't work that way for me. It felt like this book was trying way too hard to be funny and quirky instead of giving us characters that felt real and believable. The following are just a few examples of things that drove me nuts about Iris:
1. She ditches class and tutor sessions, shows up to the SAT test (that she didn't study for) half-drunk, and is then shocked when she doesn't get accepted to any of the colleges she applied for and when she isn't 'voted' valedictorian. By the way, that is not the way valedictorian's are chosen. I'm not sure if this is actually how the author thinks this happens or is just supposed to be another example of how clueless Iris is. The fact that it isn't clear is a sign to me that it doesn't work in the story. Any teenager in America who goes to public high school would be able to tell you how a valedictorian is chosen. It's not realistic that she wouldn't know, even if she is a total moron.
2. She doesn't know what global warming is, except that it's some sort of 'current event'. She then likens it to face cream. Again, I just don't see how even the most self-absorbed 18-year old wouldn't know what global warming is.
3. She questions her parentage for the entire book, just because her parents are taller than her. The first time she mentioned wondering if she was adopted, I thought it was just some sort of throwaway comment from a sullen teenager. But then she spends the entire book thinking about it and it comes off as absolutely ridiculous.
4. She doesn't know how to pronounce her Chinese name because she never asked her dad how to pronounce it. I just can't imagine being so apathetic.
5. She doesn't 'understand' Star Wars, even though she's watched the films with her father. It's not that deep.
6. She doesn't have any idea what the exchange rate is between yuan and US Dollars, even though it was explained to her. She remains ignorant of this throughout the course of the book.
7. At one point she says that she hasn't eaten in twelve hours, or 'practically half a day.' People aren't this stupid.
8. She blames all of her flaws and faults on her birth sign.
9. She tells someone she has 22/22 vision. This isn't a thing.
10. Someone asks her what the word 'acute' means. She proudly answers that it means 'adorable' (like, a cute dog! or a cute bag! STAHP)
11. She doesn't know that cousins have the same grandparents.
12. SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT A MUSEUM IS. She's surprised that there aren't price tags on the pieces and no one is haggling. I just...don't believe that someone who has grown up in American in the upper-middle class doesn't understand the concept of a museum. This is cringy. There is no way to root for this girl. She is too ridiculous.
13. She doesn't know where China is in relation to America on a world map.
14. She agrees to help her cousin with something, then breaks her promise. The cousin texts her and Iris basically ignores it. Then later on she acts completely shocked that she forgot, as if she hadn't received the text a couple chapters earlier. I'm not sure if that's a structural error with the writing or if we are really supposed to think that Iris is that stupid and selfish. Again, the fact that it isn't clear is a problem.
This is just a sample of this character's idiocy. Every single page of this book had multiple eye-rolling moments with regard to her sheer ineptitude at life. I have to question the decision to make her the butt of a thousand jokes throughout the course of this book. It just doesn't make sense. Ignorance and stupidity aren't cute and quirky in our society. They're just sad and frankly inexcusable.

I also thought her parents were really inconsistent with regard to their characterization. On the one hand, we're supposed to believe that they are these traditional Chinese parents putting pressure on their child to get good grades, go to a good college, be a successful adult. But on the other hand, they are completely neglectful and oblivious to the reality of who their daughter is. They apparently have no idea that their daughter doesn't go to class or tutor sessions. They don't know that she bombed her SAT test. They don't know that she is on the cusp of failing her senior year of high school. THAT IS NOT REALISTIC. If a child isn't showing up to school, her parents would've received multiple calls from the school. If they were risking failing out, the counselor would call the parents, not the lazy teenager. Her father never told her about his family in China, but then decides that, instead of actually PARENTING their child, they'll send her to live in China with said brother who she's never met or spoken to. She doesn't even know his name or what he looks like when she's sent off. They also give her free access to a credit card, apparently completely unaware that she is totally irresponsible with money and also totally disrespectful of her parents finances and belongings. Making them so ignorant about her shenanigans but then also being shocked that she isn't accepted to good colleges just doesn't track.

I wasn't a fan of any of the other characters either. Not enough to rant about them, since this is already getting really long, but suffice it to say, I made several notes on my Kindle about the fact that everyone in this book is an asshole.

The plot, what there was of a plot, felt like something that could've been interesting, but the book spent too long on Iris's idiotic decisions and not enough on her minimal growth. By the time we got to it I was so annoyed by the main character that I couldn't bring myself to care about what else was going on.

As far as the writing goes, I wasn't impressed. The sheer number of similes and metaphors used on essentially every page was just ridiculous. Most of them made no sense, and many of them were redundancies of similes and metaphors used in previous paragraphs on the EXACT SAME PAGE. I started highlighting them about a third of the way through the book and it's just excessive.

A couple other head-scratchers:

1. On the plane to China, she drops her phone into the toilet, which ruins it because water gets into it. Anyone who has been on a plane in the last couple of decades will tell you that's not how airplane toilets work.

2. Early in the book, we are told that Iris' parents own a swanky Mercedes. Later she talks about her parents and their 'boring Volkswagon'...which is it?

3. There were three comments about pupils that made me wonder if the author didn't mean something else. The first was about how you're supposed to 'widen your pupils' to show sorrow. The second was about someone being sad. We're told that her 'pupils are wet'. The third is Iris talking about how she can't stop looking at someone 'with her pupils'. None of these sentences make any sense. It feels like the word pupil is being used as a synonym for eye, but they aren't synonyms.

4. the term 'expiry date' is used and that's not something someone from the U.S. would say. We would say 'expiration date'.

The one saving grace of this book is the descriptions of the food. Oh my goodness, I want a dozen steamed pork buns right now. Every time she talked about food (with the exception of the scene where they eat scorpion and caterpillar...sorry, I'm just not that adventurous) my mouth would start watering. Unfortunately, that doesn't make up for all of the issues I had with this book.

At the end of the day, I think this story gets bogged down by a mind-numbingly stupid protagonist and a lack of intention with regards to the plot and characterizations.

3.5 stars

This is the third book by Ruta Sepetys that I've read. The first two, Between Shades of Grey and Salt to the Sea, were stories that she wrote drawing on her heritage for inspiration, and the result were two very emotional stories that really resonated with me. I feel like she has this knack of exploring lesser-known events within the scope of a larger event like World War II.

With this story, she moved away from her own ancestral history and instead decided to explore a different time period and a different country and culture. Ultimately, I appreciate the story, but I have some mixed feelings.

First of all, I want to say that it is plain as day that she put an amazing amount of research into crafting this story. It sounds weird to talk about world building in a novel that takes place in our own world, but I feel like the best historical fiction novels transport the reader to the time and place they are focusing on, and this book was no exception. I will admit, I didn't know much about Spain during and after the Spanish Civil War, but the author's attention to setting and characters made it very easy to envision. I felt like I was getting information without it getting dry and expositional. The result was a very rich story where the setting almost felt like one of the characters, which is something I love.

As far as the actual characters went, I thought they were strong, but I have to admit that I didn't feel connected to them. I was curious about what was going to happen with them and wanted good things for them, but I didn't feel much emotion when sad or unfair things happened to them. By contrast, when I read Between Shades of Grey I remember feeling so deeply for those characters and their situation. This didn't give me that same experience.

When I was trying to figure out why, I came to the conclusion that it had a lot to do with the author's decision to write the story in third-person omniscient tense. It created this distance from all of the characters, like I was being told a story by someone who wasn't invested in the characters' outcomes. In reading the author's note at the end of the book, she states that she really wanted to write this story but also show respect to the people who were from that area and be sensitive to their culture (I'm paraphrasing, I don't have the book right in front of me right now) and history, which gave me a little insight and the theory that perhaps she wanted to maintain that narrative distance purposefully so as not to lay claim on the story as belonging to her. Note, that is just an impression I got from the structure and style of the book and the author's note. This could be totally false and I may just be reading into it too much. Regardless, I wanted to feel more than I did about these characters and their stories, and that's kind of a bummer.

As far as the plot goes, while I was interested in what was going on, especially since this is based on awful events during a dark time in Spanish history, there were parts that felt like they went on a little too long that just didn't interest me, partially because of my lack of connection to the characters. I felt like there were some things that could have and probably should have been streamlined. This book is split into two parts. The first part is like the first 400 pages of the book. The second part is the last 100 or so and skips ahead almost 20 years. That jump felt really jarring to me, because it felt like we skipped ahead in the middle of the story. It almost felt like the author realized that she was already at like 400 pages and needed to wrap it up, so she jumped forward and haphazardly caught us up with the characters and wrapped the book up really quickly.

Speaking of the ending, it didn't feel earned to me. After the time jump, it just felt like one long unnecessary epilogue. And actually, there isn't much resolution for the characters and some of their fates seemed designed to evoke an emotional response from the reader and not because they actually made sense in the context of the characters.

At the end of the day, I really do appreciate all of the research that went into crafting this story, and I may even read it again one day just for the setting and atmosphere, but it just didn't grip me like her previous stories have. I'll still pick up whatever she comes out with next, because I think she is a very talented writer.