Review of Burn by Elissa Sussman

Title/Author: Burn (Four Sisters #2) by Elissa Sussman
Publisher/Date published: Greenwillow Books, January 19th 2016
How I got this book: received it from the publisher as an egalley, thanks!

Goodreads summary: After helping to rescue Princess Aislynn, Elanor has finally rejoined the rebel camp she calls home. Stolen from her parents at a young age and forced into service by the Wicked Queen, Elanor now wants nothing more than to see the queen removed from power. But Elanor has secrets, mistakes she’s spent years trying to forget, and the closer the rebels get to the throne, the harder it is for Elanor to keep her past hidden away.

With fellow rebels on her side — including Princess Aislynn, Thackery, and the handsome and mysterious Matthias — it is time for Elanor to make a decision. Will she protect her secrets? Or risk everything to save the people she loves?

So I really enjoyed Stray when I read it last year, so I was excited to see Burn pop up on Edelweiss! I mean, I've been waiting for some answers for AGES, so yeah, obviously I wanted to read Burn.

Sadly, Burn didn't work as well for me as Stray did. I mean, I felt a little lost throughout the whole story and that's just not a very good feeling. I like to be fully immersed in a story and the characters and experience everything right along with them. And that never happened with Burn. I kept wondering where the storyline was going and why exactly we were being told all these things and basically just what was the point to it all. I'm still not entirely sure about all these things.

Eleanor is in theory a very kickass woman, she fights, she's not afraid to admit that she falls in love with a person and isn't inhibited by a gender in this. I love that not everyone is the standard straight in this series. But while Eleanor is interesting, there just wasn't enough of a plot to back it all up. People did things (major vagueness, I know) that I'm still confused about, I mean, it was just WEIRD and seemed out of character. That is based on the things we actually get to know about the characters, cause most of the ones we're introduced to in Burn aren't given a lot of depth, sadly.

I did like learning more about Eleanor's past and her relationship with the Queen, but I'm still not really sure why the Queen did what she did and that kinda bugs me. Also, I'm not entirely convinced by the romance and aside from a very cute fox that I just wanted to HUG, there wasn't much that I was very enthusiastic about. The fox totally stole the show.

My rating: 2 stars