4.5 stars
*Thank you to Netgalley and SourceBooks Fire for providing me with an ARC of this book. Some parts may have been changed as I did not read the final book. Please know that all of the expressed thoughts are my honest opinions.
Furyborn was such an enjoyable read! The writing was excellent, the characters were distinct, the world was original, and the plot was creative.
Furyborn starts with the queen, Queen Rielle giving birth to her daughter. Only seconds after, the doctor realizes that someone else is in the room, Corien, and thus, a super intense escape scene begins.
From the start, I was enthralled. One of my favorite qualities that this book has is the fact that it jumps between time zones. At first, it was hard to keep track of the two different storylines as I didn't know enough about the characters to fully distinguish them. However, I was able to differentiate between the two different time settings quickly, and didn't have any more confusion afterwards.
The book moved at a very swift pace; even when the time jumps occurred, each character was always in the middle of the action. While this made me read the book faster, I wanted to see what happened next, I would have enjoyed some more down moments at the ends of chapters. I feel like that would have helped me to enjoy and savor each character's development and story more.
Something that I wish was included was more of a background. While the time-jumps helped to fill in the gaps actively, I would have liked more information about the origins of elements and how people came to control them and the saints and what happened them. While there was never a super good part in the book to discuss this, I feel like it could have been included in the prologue or the beginning when we learn the people are praying at the seven temples.
One of my favorite parts of the writing was the fact that from the prologue, we know the Rielle is the Blood Queen. However, when the story starts, we meet Rielle before she is given the title. This makes it so much more interesting to see how she became the Blood Queen. For me, one of the best lines in the book is, "They will love me. All of them will." These two simple sentences show Reille's determination not to be someone that is feared, but instead to be someone seen as the protector of the kingdom. I think that her commitment to become the beloved Sun Queen makes her transition to Blood Queen even better.
For me, this book alternated between being super predictable and super surprising. There were parts that I legit rolled my eyes when characters FINALLY realized something important. But, on the flip side, there were moments where I was left flabbergasted, and everything clicked into place.
The ending of the book was satisfying and only fueled my need for the next book! I loved how it ended, well it was a love-hate, but it was so good!
In conclusion, I would highly recommend this book to people who love time jumps, distinct characters, a creative world, and an addicting plot. The fast-paced nature of this book meant that it was a quicker read as the chapters almost always ended on a cliffhanger. I have already recommended this book to so many people! I need to have the next book now!