Allegations aside, I decided to read this book because I wanted to know whether I would purchase it as a book box subscription or not. Conclusion: I will not.

I do not want to get into an argument with anyone about the complaints this book has had. Therefore, I will side step that and discuss my thoughts on other aspects of the book.

This book started off well. I was intrigued by Ranka and wanted to learn more about her struggles and backstory. The idea of her infiltrating and trying the kill the prince is a trope well used but I adore. However, it barely features in the book. Almost instantly, Ranka goes into the castle and there is no aggression or no plans to do anything about the prince. She does nothing but walk around or follow the princess into a tunnel.

As a blood witch trained and groomed to hate the crown, the lack of action is boring. She befriends them almost immediately and the "animosity" between her and the princess is a gentle breeze if anything. Not convincing. Nor was the romance. They barely talk to each other (though there is a lot of intense staring) and suddenly its attraction and love. I feel like it could have been sooo much better. I would hardly call it enemies to lovers because a) they were hardly enemies to begin with because there was NO FIGHTING and b) I didn't believe in the romance enough for it to be love.

The world building was also so confusing. The explanations of different clans couldn't have been fleshed out a lot more and I found I was very confused at who were the bad guys and who were the good guys. There was a lot of side plots that distracted from the main one (IDEK what the main one was because it certainly was not killing the prince or finding Veyna...if that was her name). The bad guys kept switching and by that point I was so disconnected from the plot that I just skim read the rest of the book. I felt barely attached to the characters.

All in all, I hate it when the blurb does not actually match the story.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.
The premise of the book sounded very interesting and promising however I felt it just didn't deliver - the writing style and worldbuilding were lacking for me.

I’d like to start out by thanking Netgalley and the publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for this honest review.

I’d also like to start out by mentioning the controversy surrounding this book, but as I’m neither black nor Jewish, I will not comment on it, as it is not my place to do so. Instead I suggest reading reviews by readers from both these demographics, which has people on both sides.

The book has quite an interesting concept: witch is sent to marry and kill the prince, but she ends up falling in love with his sister, as well as some very well written stories about abuse and mental illness. Unfortunately I struggled to connect to the characters, both because the pacing was fast and because the story felt more plot than character driven. Though I really enjoyed the part of the story that focused on manipulation and abuse, coming to realize someone you dearly love is abusing you / abused you and then healing from that. I think if I’d been younger I’d definitely have enjoyed the story more, so I think its more a case of me being in the wrong demographic. Had I perhaps been a few years younger I might have really loved this.

I’m not sure if I’ll review this book other places due to the controversy, but if I do, it’ll be at some point closer to the book’s release.

Ranka must marry a Prince in order to keep her people safe. But she finds herself drawn instead to the Prince's sister, who helps her work with her magic and investigate the deaths of fellow witches.

The writing style of this book is pretty good, but the world building is a little lacking and I was confused to start with. However, it does pick up! I just wasn't a big fan of Ranka by then - she wasn't a character that I really felt anything for.

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

The One We Burn is a sensational debut book about young blood witch name Ranka who tried to ended treaty with pretending to doing her duties to married human prince. The premise is interesting expecially when our FMC finally learned the real truth from peoples she thought as her mortal enemies. I like how author trying to provide diversity in characters expecially at the court. The pace is slower than my usually but still enjoyable and suitable with Ranka's narration. Ranka suffered since young age and badly traumatized. I feel sympathy, understand her angsty, and appreciate saw her character growing in whole story.

The writing style is smooth and easy to understand. Author can fleshed out her characters and delivered her story. I think need extra work on world building development because right now the book only scratches the surface all the potential. I enjoyed the banter between character, and wishes extra chemistry on the romance side.

Overall this isnt perfect but a solid enjoyable read from debut book. Halloween is near and I am glad got my hand on this book full of dark magic and bloody badass witches.

Thank you Hodder & Stoughton (Audio) and Netgalley for provided my copy. Really appreciate and my thoughts are my own

recieved this book as both pdf and audio as part of an advanced reader group in return for a honest review.

I was at frist drawn into the cover art. It was soo eye catching the powerful Great axe and around it the furry of fire.

The words just above the title
" I am the Weapon. Use me "

Together it was like a sirens call. I needed to know who or what they burned .Who was this weapon that was spoken of?

It turned out the ones they burned were witches. Children born with magic in their veins.
.

One such child was Ranka . Her magic was different from that of others it demanded sacrifice , it demanded a life. Ranka was a blood witch.

After her magic destroyed her life with her sister , she was found by the leader of Skra.

The old witch took her, claimed her for the coven and told her she would be strong and she would be powerful.
Her adoptive family the Skra coven took her and taught her to use her magic for the good of the coven.

Then she was named Bloodwinn. The plan was simple she would go to the Prince as part of the treaty between the Witches and non magic peoples and when her blood magic built within her she would kill the prince and her adoptive people as well as others would cease power and reclaim their lands . No more burning.

It seemed simple.

As a debut novel this is breath taking and utterly sensational. It was slightly slow to start but once it did...I couldn't put it down I had to know what was going to happen next. I had to know if Ranka survived.

Pure epic story telling. I expect we will be seeing great things from this talented wordsmith.

ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest and fair review.

Ranka is a blood witch and she is supposed to marry a human prince, who is supposedly evil, in order to uphold a peace treaty between witches and humans. At first, she kept refusing, yet later on she gives up and agrees to marrying him: the only reason behind this change of heart was that, by getting closer to him, she could actually kill him and, hopefully, this would lead to a war. However, once she gets to know the prince and his sister, Ranka changes her mind as she understands they are not as evil as she thought.

I really wanted to like this novel and Ranka's story, but it was really hard for me to get into it. I did have to put it down a couple of times and had to come back to it because I just wasn't engaged enough. It didn't manage to interest me, not even a little bit and it felt disappointing as I was really looking forward to reading and liking it. Also, I found the writing pretty slow-paced. Such a pity.
However, I appreciated how the author talks about some important topics, such as mental health or coping with traumas.
Unfortunately, I found both the characters and their stories very plain and boring. Furthermore, I especially found Ranka to be really annoying and I felt as if she was complaining constantly throughout the entire book.

I am not going to comment about the controversy with poc as I am not entitled to say anything in regards.

My rating: 2.5/3!

A few things before we delve right into my thoughts about »The Ones We Burn«:

1. Yes, I know that the book is supposedly racist.
2. Yes, I also read it anyway.
3. No, as a white person it is not my place to comment on whether this book is racist or not and I don't want to but I thought it would be beneficial to talk a bit about what the book does/does not do anyway because before I read it I tried to find out what exactly the problem was and found it pretty hard to find reviews that talked about it. Between starting the book and finishing it there are more now a lot more positive and helpful reviews than a few weeks ago, where most reviews just said “1 star, I heard it’s racist”.
4. At the end I’ll link some reviews that discussed the book really well in my opinion.
5. People should stop giving 1 star reviews for books they haven't read. I get that we don't want to promote “problematic” books but rating/commenting on a book because of something one person said is… not great.
6. I’ll talk about the book itself first which will be spoiler free and the second part of the review will be spoilers and a bit more context regarding the supposed racism in the book.
7. If I say something wrong or hurtful in this review please let me know 💛

I wasn’t a huge fan of the author or anything before I picked this up, I just thought the book sounded interesting and it seemed like a really good autumn book - witches, blood magic, morally gray characters. And the book was all that, which is great. It’s also queer and I don't have enough sapphic fantasies in my life.

It’s YA but it is also quite dark which I personally loved but also just be aware that it gets a bit graphic (blood, gore etc.) and Ranka also is deeply traumatized and it was sometimes tough to read from her perspective and about what she went through. So, it’s more for older YA readers and I think this book could have also very well been adult and even a bit darker because the foundation was there, I probably would have liked it even more if it went to even darker places. But it is YA and it’s age appropriate and I’m not criticizing it for that.

I immediately liked the writing style when I began reading, my only little complaint is that maybe sometimes it reads a bit modern for the world the story is set in: the characters talk about biological warfare and adrenaline for example and it just felt weird in the setting to me because it’s a pretty technological not developed world. Some phrases just seemed a bit odd to me.

I was also a bit confused in the beginning, the first chapter seemed so random when you don’t know anything about the witches and the world but looking back it was a really good start to the book and I was fully invested by chapter 3 and didn’t want to put it down.

Ranka was such an interesting main character right from the beginning. It gets clear pretty fast that Ranka is an unreliable narrator; she lives in the mountains with her coven, a quite secluded life and she only knows what the leader, Ongrum, tells her. And obviously Ranka trusts her because Ongrum was the one who took her in, who gave her a place to live, a place where she found family and friends.

Rankas character development was great, how she began to question the things she was told, how she began to process her trauma instead of suppressing what happened to her/she did. Ranka felt so real and raw and I loved reading from her POV, even when she did stupid things because I get it. Rankas character was explained so well, all of her flaws and trauma and relationships and yeah, i just really really liked her and enjoyed reading about her.

The story itself was fast paced, the chapters pretty short which I appreciated and made me want to keep reading. The plot was solid, a bit predictable - for the reader, not Ranka, which was sometimes a bit frustrating but as I said, I absolutely get why Ranka did what she did and I liked that I understood her character so well. It was easy to understand her and still see the bigger picture and what was really going on. It made me root for her even more.

But I also have to admit I wasn’t 100% sold on the romance. I loved the relationships between Ranka, Galen, Aramis and Percy, a bit found family and especially Percy was lots of fun to read about. The dynamic between all of the characters was great, I just wasn’t totally feeling the romance and attraction between Ranka and Aramis. But that’s fine because this book isn’t romance heavy and it’s a minor complaint and maybe also a me-thing, not a the book-thing. The romance wasn’t bad and I love that the book is so queer, I just wasn’t 100% feeling it.

Another thing I wasn’t 100% sold on was the world building - the more I thought about it the less some things made sense to me and with that we get to some **spoilers:**

I think its the world building or more the lack of it here and there that let to the statement that TOWB is a book “in which the Black siblings in power are oppressing poor, helpless white ppl” ( [https://twitter.com/AshiaMonet/status/1541085622559035392](https://twitter.com/AshiaMonet/status/1541085622559035392))

Which is in my opinion just not what happened in the book.

- the main conflict of the book is humans and witches fighting against each other - but the thing is that we don't know exactly why? Are they afraid of each other? Why do they hate each other? I have no idea. But apparently they can't live next to each other at the beginning of the book. The thing is, that humans burn and kill witches but witches are also not innocent, its two species at war with each other. So, it is in my opinion not really one species suppressing another but that's probably debatable, it’s just not how I understood the story. I can't find the exact quote again but I think it’s said somewhere that neither witches nor humans are blameless in the conflict.
- the other thing is that witches and humans are both ethnically diverse, its not “the villainous humans are black and the poor witches are white”. And not even the people in power - meaning the royal family - is black or white. Aramis and Galen are Black but honestly, even from the synopsis it is obvious that these two are not the villains of the story and not oppressing anyone. And their parents: the king was white and the mother - a blood witch like Ranka - black.

»Had she trembled like Ranka now wanted to, or had the strode forward with certainty, brown face serene, Arlani robes a swirl at her feet as she accepted the pale hand of a boy king who carried hurricanes in his blood.”

So, are the previous king and queen the bad guys? Also not really in my opinion. For one, we have other villains in the book than dead people, and two, we only know Rankas POV and she only knows what others wanted her to know, so. Not the most reliable narrator regarding the politics of the land I think.
»I know the stories your people tell, of the wicked Skybreaker king and his treaty wife. Of the bloodthirsty, witch burning humans they rule. […] Alus and Lyra were not perfect - but they were not the storybook monsters either. They loved each other. They loved their children and their people even more. And most of the time we loved them back.«

The villains of the story are humans, yes. But not the royal family, not specifically Black people. As I said, Ranka is an unreliable narrator who goes through lots of trauma and gets emotionally abused again and again by the people she loves and so she thinks in the beginning that Aramis and Galen are the bad guys - but its pretty clear that we can't believe everything Ranka thinks. The emotional abuse is hinted at quite early on and honestly, even Ranka realizes pretty fast that she doesn't actually know anything about the twins.

I get that the skin color of the previous king and queen are only briefly mentioned and that its something you can easily miss but I think it’s important for the bigger picture of the book and the supposed reverse racism discussion.

So, getting back to the world building, that I found lacking:
Honestly, I couldn't really tell you anything about the world except that humans and witches have a hard time co-existing. I’m not even sure if Witchik and Isodal are two countries/kingdoms ore if Witchik is just a region of Isodal? Not sure. And if Witchik is its own country, do they have a ruler? Because it didn’t seem so. I have no idea how the world looks, a map would have been really helpful but also a bit more clearer information. (Maybe I’m also stupid and overlooked it, wouldn't want to rule that out.)

Another thing is that I don't know anything about the witches, which is a bit sad because our main character is a witch. Ranka is a blood witch and even after reading a whole book about her I’m not sure what exactly her powers allowed her to do. And the other witches? No idea what makes them witches, what they can do. Why are the humans so scared of them? Are there different kinds? Wouldn't I like to know.

Also, humans having magic seems to be a thing? At least Galen has some kind of wind magic.
»Different magics have different anchors - wind magic is tied to breath.«
So there are other kinds but what, no idea. Can everyone have magic? Galen inherited his from his father but Aramis didn't and she’s also not a witch. How do witches get their powers? At random? Do they also inherit their powers to their children? I have so many questions.

I wish the author would have fleshed out the world a bit more, I think it would have made some things a bit more clear. I absolutely enjoyed the book anyway but it bothered me too much to give it 5 stars.

Nonetheless, overall I am really happy I picked this book up despite so many 1 star reviews at the time because I enjoyed the book a lot and would recommend it.
Is is perfect? For me, no. I get why people are rating this lower but I personally just liked Ranka so much and had such a good time reading about her journey that I don't care about the lack in world building. Would that have made the book even better? Certainly but it was still a solid debut and I am curious to see what Rebecca Mix writes next.

Reviews I would recommend reading:

- [https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4812626829?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4812626829?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1)
- [https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4814072828?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4814072828?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1)
- [https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4250568396](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4250568396)

Honestly, to say this was overwhelmingly good would be an understatement. My high hopes were lifted with each banter-filled, action-packed page.
First of all, I LOVED Ranka. That girl needs a hug and a touch of therapy, but I love her.
Aramis and Galen were the icing on an already amazing, queer cake, and Percy was the pinecone on top.
Rebecca's writing is simply divine, the dialogue is natural, funny and sharp, and while this is a dark novel at times, with themes of abuse, death (and the plague!) it never feels too dark. Ultimately, this is a book about survival, love, found family, and learning to love yourself. It's romantic, and sweet, and brutal and hopeful.

Mix misses the mark in this high fantasy novel. While an interesting premise, there is a severe lack of worldbuilding and character descriptions, relying on the reader to come to conclusions themselves. The novel promised to an epic tale but felt very lacklustre

I don't normally read fantasy, but the reason I requested this ARC is so I could review a book that I had actually read - unlike most of the reviews that have been logged so far on Goodreads.

I think it comes as no surprise that the book does not contain any of the racist/antisemitic elements that someone successfully started a smear campaign about. It is actually staggering how many people mindlessly followed that first accusation without checking for themselves. And in doing so, drove an excited young author away from the internet.

I hope this doesn't come across as rude, but Rebecca Mix isn't exactly an established name in writing (yet). She's had a couple of threads go viral, and they have been very funny, and I would wager that this is how most people became aware of her. Someone quite clearly took umbrage and decided that they would try and ruin her writing career before it starts, and the Goodreads rating very quickly dropped from 4.65 to 3.15 with no sign of recovering, from all the people who made a Goodreads account only so they could one-star this book and perpetuate the accusations.

The situation that the accuser has made up is so blatantly NOT present in the book, all it would take for people to verify these claims would be reading the first ten pages. Instead, we've had users withdraw their previous praise, all because someone made up a racist undertone to the book and they have just taken that as a fact instead of reflecting on their own reading experience. I read a couple of other books fairly recently which mentioned blood magic. Neither was targeted to this extent, or at all, which really drives the point home that this is a personal attack on this particular author. Shockingly, if people have to go back and edit their reviews because they "hadn't realised" that something was racist, chances are it wasn't racist in the first place.

Yes there is an oppressor and an oppressed group in this book - but neither is entirely white or entirely Black. Race isn't what divides the characters in this book and the main conflict and power dynamic is between humans and witches, both of which span several races and genders. Which is made clear from, like, chapter 1.

It is a good story - if a little long - told from the point of view of Ranka, who is the only living blood witch of her generation and therefore must be married to the human prince as established by a peace treaty. There are 4 central characters, all teenagers, with fairly distinct voices which is often easier to achieve in 3rd person narration, and the prose flows really well in spite of being repetitive at times (which I think is by choice for once, as opposed to sloppy editing).

This book is one big allegory for being brought up by a narcissistic parent (or several authority figures in the case of Ranka), yes it's a little heavy handed at times and feels like it's regurgitating instagram infographics about childhood trauma *but* I also appreciate that writing this must have been cathartic for the author as she was processing her own abuse through her characters.

I would have rated this 4 stars if I was rating it in a vacuum, but I am rating it 5 to counteract all of the fake reviews from people who haven't read a single word of it.

With thanks to Hodder&Stoughton and Netgalley UK for the e-ARC of this book.

Many thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and Rebecca Mix for the advanced copy of The Ones We Burn via NetGalley, in return for my honest and unbiased review. Quick note: I don’t recap plots in my reviews, as it’s easy enough to read the book’s synopsis and blurbs, I purely focus on my feelings & opinions of how the books makes me feel.

I will not be discussing anything to do with any controversy discussed on social media regarding this book regarding racism or religious undertones. However, due to the controversy, I will not be reviewing this book outside of NetGalley.

The Ones We Burn is a relatively fast-paced, plot-driven novel which is heavy on the gore and body horror. It is LGBTQIA+ themed, highly inclusive and very diverse, at times to the detriment of the story. It is currently ‘the season of the witch’ and it did sometimes feel like the author was on a box-ticking exercise to try to please as many audiences as possible, trying to include as many identities, tropes, sexualities, interests, etc, into the storyline as possible.

Altogether, this made the book feel cramped and stilted in places. Although contradictory, it was both bulky and empty. Bulky with representation, it was nevertheless empty with meaning. The true feeling behind the characters was lacking.

This is, of course, personal for me. I prefer character-driven books over plot-driven ones. If you prefer a plot-driven story, you may enjoy this more. However, do expect to figure out the ending well in advance. As long as you are ok with not being surprised, you should reasonably enjoy this.

Overall, this book was ‘ok’. It could have been groundbreaking. Some of the ideas were unique. If the characters had been fleshed out and had they had depth of feelings, they could have torn my heart out and stomped all over it. But as it was, it just left me feeling ‘meh’, and it took me twice as long as usual to finish the book than it usually does.

Moods: dark

Tropes: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, peril, redemption/dark past, arranged marriage

Pace: fast

Character development: weak

Plot or character driven: plot

Diversity: high

Spice: 1/5

Trigger warnings: Animal death, Blood/Gore, Child abuse, Death, Death of a family member, Homophobia, Misogyny, Murder, Physical or mental abuse, Physical illness, Violence

Rating 3/5

This book was an OK read for me. I enjoyed and warmed to the characters quite easily however some of them did not feel as developed as I wanted them to be. I feel like only two characters - Ranka and Amaris - were paid particular attention to throughout the writing process by the author and that the others were just "additional pieces" to add something to the story. This meant that I found it very difficult to understand their foothold in the book and the plotline itself so I wish this had been developed a little more.

There was a lot of aspects of the book which, I felt, could have been explored a lot more to further deepen the plotline and bring about further understanding around some of the actions of the characters. In particular, I would have liked the magic element and the covens to be explored alongside some historical background on how the treaty came to be. At times it just felt as though I had been plunged into a world and expected to know what is going on.

I found the plotline to be creative and different to what I have previously and I enjoyed a bit of originality around the whole book. Again, this could have been developed more with the suggestions above but all-in-all it was adequate enough and enjoyable enough.

Some of the chapters simply felt like filler-chapters, as if the author wasn't sure what to put in them and at times I felt out of touch with the book due to this. Alongside this, information was given but then directly challenged by another piece of information. Notably when it is said that it is "rare" for a witch to challenge her leader but then a leader has been challenged "17 times in 13 years". This could have been looked at to make the book flow better.

All in all, the writing was solid and the themes around self-worth, trauma and mental health were well-developed and ingrained in all of the characters despite some of them simply being fillers. I really enjoyed the character development of Ranka throughout.

I want to do this review in two parts: one addressing the controversy, which at this point is unavoidable, and a second on the story and book itself.

- Regarding the controversy: First of, I am neither jewish nor black, so I want to be very clear that this is just my humble representation of what I have read, but I believe it is wiser to trust Jewish and Black reviewers as to how they consider the book to be. It is not my intention to take away from their voices.

I want to address two things:
1) The reverse racism fantasy accusation:
I want to know why people who call it that do, for real, DM me, let’s have a chat, because this might be me being absolutely clueless.
From my understanding, the issue is that the two royals oppressing the witches are black and the witches are white. Now, having read the book, this is not accurate, factually.
I took notes from different parts of the texts, and while the mentions are subtle and could have been more visible, there is racial diversity on both sides. Witches are not all white, some being described by the mention of brown hands and so on. The last bloodwinn witch is described as brown too. On the “oppressors” side, the king before was described as a pale boy, guards are described as brown and pale, kings mages are described as white, nobles are coded as white.
So, as much as I can tell from sticking to the text, there is diversity on BOTH sides.
Are the royals oppressors? Spoiler, no. Even before we actually find that out, the text is very clear in describing them as kind and entirely different from what Ranka imagined.
Based on that, I can’t see what these reviews said I would, this is not black oppressing white by any means. At most, I think the author was very preoccupied with having diversity and went about it awkwardly: in her attempt to be diverse and “color-blind”, she failed at representing it in an appropriate manner. While I understand how handling this that way is hurtful, I do believe that maybe there can be room for discussion without throwing the author away, but then again, what do I know.

2) The antisemitism claims:
I have no way of knowing this. I had no knowledge of blood libel before reading the reviews, I’m not entirely sure I understand, and I know jewish reviewers are torn on this. From my understanding, Ranka’s magic isn’t based on blood or sacrifice, the reason she is called a blood-witch is because her magic runs in her blood, making her stronger, faster, but also murderous. Her magic makes her powerful but also urges her to kill, and is, eventually, supposed to kill her. Ranka herself is not jewish-coded, and has no stereotypical physical attributes that indicate so. Honestly, if someone hadn’t pointed it out, I would have never thought about anything jewish-related while reading this. And I’ve seen many instances of blood magic in fiction, including Avatar (Blood bending), and I had no idea about the history of blood libel. On that front, I will humbly say that I don’t BELIEVE this is antisemitic, but again, I can’t be the one to make that call.


Alright, now for the book.

The plot and the characters were okay, at times very good. I liked Percy, and the dialogue, if a bit on the nose, was fun. I think it was a little bit over narrated, to a point where I would skip paragraphs because the internal monologue was just re-repeating, and re-explaining everything that we could have figured out naturally. The romance was fine….the issue being that the skip was both too subtle and too abrupt. Like, the moments where the FMC starts to feel something, it’s very pointed out and you immediately knew what the author was implying but it didn’t feel organic enough. Then suddenly they’re kissing but then nothing much happens…It made me feel both happy for the lesbian representation and a bid underwhelmed.

I’ll be honest, the controversy gave me so much anxiety, it tainted my reading of the book. I couldn’t really get into the story because I kept trying to see if the claims were correct, because I was scared to get into a book that was hurting people.
I don’t think the book is bad, honestly. The writing is okay, the plot is interesting, and the world building holds up, especially for a first book. The issue is, as has been pointed out in other reviews, that emotional moments didn’t feel emotional enough, even though you could tell what the author was going for. And that the pacing was a bit fast and loose and that the plot never seemed to become concrete enough until the second half. It felt a bit awkward.
But honestly, I think this is a good YA book, it just didn’t draw me in personally. I kept putting it down and it kept feeling like a chore to pick it up. It’s a shame, because at times, the action was interesting, the writing was good, I liked the characters... it just felt a bit like something was missing. But again, outside of the controversy, this is a good YA book, it just could have used better editing.

Another issue is that, when I read medieval type fantasy, while I don’t mind some modern words to come out (“fuck” being one, I don’t care), if it’s too much, it gets me out of the mood, and it ruins it for me.

What I really hope the publisher will do before the book comes out is:
- To ACTUALLY address the controversy, get the sensitivity reader out there and explain her POV too, get the author to acknowledge that she may have been incredibly clumsy in her attempt to create something progressive. It’s good that she tried, hell, I would have loved a lesbian love story in fantasy when I was a young closeted bisexual girl who loved dragons and princesses. And I know that for POC, having diversity in fiction, and handled well, is absolutely needed. I read that the author does not intend on changing a thing by publication, and in a way I do understand. From my reading of the book I don’t think any harm was intended, and I have seen books with much, much, much more problematic representation that flew under the radar. But address the controversy, listen to reviewers and actually engage with the community instead of allowing for this book to be thrown away because no one is willing to discuss the issue at hand.

Again, this writer and book have so much potential, but idk what the hell happened with the controversy and at this point, I feel like whoever was in charge of the publishing should have been more aware of the potential controversy.

At this point i'm afraid to even post a review on goodreads, and I definetly will not push my luck by posting on Instagram.

Leaving aside all the drama on twitter, I thought I'd go into this without any preconceptions and just read it for the YA fantasy it is. I wanted something easy to read and entertaining. And while to a certain extent this was enjoyable, I don't think it's outstanding. The writing is OK and I found the political aspects of the story intriguing, however I didn't really get any emotional connections with the characters, although I did like that Ranka is more than just one dimensional and morally grey. They go through a lot, suffer a lot and this makes them not entirely honest or righteous in their decision making. I also liked the power dynamics of Galen and Aramis. It's just a shame the antagonist didn't get the same treatment. I also found the plot rather generic.

An OK YA fantasy, that I think needs to be judged after reading to form an opinion of it.

I really liked and was intrigued by the synopsis of this book, but after hearing about the controversy surrounding it and the problematic content, I am not sure that I would like to read it anymore

There is a common theme in my reading experiences lately regarding books that are super popular on booktok written by authors that are more-or-less popular social media personas. That common theme is that they disappoint me, and sadly, "The Ones We Burn" is not an outlier here.

I now know there is a lot of discourse surrounding this book and certain elements in its narrative, but I didn't know about that before I finished it and I don't feel qualified to comment on it, so I encourage everyone to read up on these issues in reviews by poc readers.

Even apart from any such issues, this book is just. Not good. It tells the story of Ranka, a blood witch (which is apparently the most powerful kind of witch, though I couldn't tell you what other kinds of witches there are) who is supposed to marry an evil human prince in order to uphold a peace treaty. After refusing at first, she later accepts to pretend to agree in order to get close enough to the prince to kill him, possibly leading to war among the humans. Obviously, she changes her mind about the killing later on because these evil royals are not as evil as she thought.

All of this is told in such an incredibly heavy-handed and over-narrated way that at no point at all was I emotionally engaged or even just interested in what was going on. Everything is narrated in a rather bland, distanced narrative voice, nothing ever comes alive. The characters are not allowed to speak and to be heard by the readers, they remain written words on a page until the end. We are told that Ranka has these important relationships with people but they are never felt, they never exist beyond the narration. The romance suffers from it as well, as it is just told to us instead of developing organically between Ranka and the princess, Aramis, instead of being shown in their interaction.

Scenes that should be emotional are just boring because all of it is tell-don't-show. "Twists" are incredibly obvious because the narration is so heavy-handed (a character later to be revealed as a Bad Guy looks "like he has secrets" in a conversation with Ranka where he does very suspicious things, just to name one example). Nothing in this book ever surprised me because it was so clear where everything was headed at any time. Basically the first time Ranka meets the prince she is supposed to kill, the prince she is convinced is an evil despot who kidnapped her friend and kind-of-surrogate-sister, we are told how kind and sweet and gentle and absolutely not evil he is. Ranka does not discover this for herself throughout the story, we are simply told it is so, completely taking away any excitement and mystery of the kill-the-prince-storyline. No wonder I forgot that was even a thing halfway through the book. This is just one example of plot points that are rendered completely void by the narration, and of that there are many. Things that should mean something are simply irrelevant and insignificant, like Ranka's past with her sister or her relationship with her aforementioned surrogate sister and so on and so forth. None of it really means anything, and so none of it made me care.

I'm frankly very surprised this gets published as-is and I wonder if any editor ever seriously looked at it. It's a badly constructed story that fails to engage its readers in any way, it's overnarrated and badly paced, and it's a shame because there are some ideas in the book that I actually found kind of cool. I liked the general idea about witches, I liked Percy's dragon-like powers though they were never really explored. There are bits and pieces that have potential, but the execution is very weak. I barely made it through the book and almost dnf'd it many times. Maybe with some better editing and improved writing this could become an okay story, but as it is, it's sadly a 1 star read for me.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

Right now i dont feel comfortable as to give an opinion given all there has been going around this book. Was there true in the reviews? Yes. Was there opinions that were not entirelly true or just taken without context or that were developed better later?? yes.

Refer to this reviews for in depth thoughts please.

- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4812626829
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4810285214
-https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4814072828?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
-https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4015477149?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1

3.5 stars
Ranka is a blood-witch in a world with a fragile alliance between humans and witches. She is named as the Bloodwinn and has to marry the heir of the Sunra’s throne to keep the treaty. Her coven asks her to go, but instead of marrying the Prince, they ask her to kill him. When Ranka arrives in the city, she finds that the Sunra family aren’t quite who she has been led to believe.

I think this is a good fantasy book. The magic is particularly interesting, with Ranka’s (the MC) magic literally craving death. There are other characters with different and intriguing magic too, and I wish it had been explored a bit more.

The plot is pretty straightforward, and while I guessed most of the twists, they were entertaining enough with betrayals, misconceptions and lies.

The writing was solid too, very easy to read and I flew through the pages. The themes of self-worth, and the conversations around trauma and mental health were well written.

I liked the characters well enough too, especially Ranka and Aramis. The rest of them felt a bit flat for me, and though they were all very distinct from each other I didn't connect with them much. I am also not convinced on the enemies-to-lovers aspect, as I didn’t see much enmity past a few arguments, but romance is something I can take or leave anyway, so it didn’t bother me much.

This book is a standalone, and I feel like it suffered for it. There were so many things that I wish could have been explored further, and characters I wanted to understand more of. However, the author had said that there may be more stories in this world, so we shall see!

A final review note: this book is quite violent and has a lot of body horror, and I am very surprised to see it is technically for teens.

I want to finish by stating that I am aware of the complaints surrounding the book, but am not going to be adding my voice because it is not my place to say if this book is or is not racist etc. Check own voices reviews if you feel you want to know more.

The Ones We Burn
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Rebecca Mix
⭐️

The synopsis of this book sounded great but I have to admit, I was disappointed.

It's meant to be based on the enemies to lovers trope but the main characters, don't even hate each other. They argue a couple of times and then fall for each other which put me off.

The pacing was slow and I did put it down a few times and had to come back to it because I just wasn't engaged enough.

I wish there was more magic and history/world building because I was left a little confused sometimes and some of the themes themselves made me uncomfortable, especially the claims of reverse racism and potential antisemitism.

The writing style itself was fine but ultimately this book isn't for me. If you're thinking about reading this I would suggest reading some reviews first and checking out the TWs.

*Thank you to @netgalley and the publishers hodder and Stoughton for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review*