Crown of Feathers

!!!Spoiler Warning!!! If you haven’t read this book yet, I give away some key spoilers!

Crown of Feathers

by Nicki Pau Preto

I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. 

What did the great heroes do when the sun fell from the sky? They leapt onto those wild flames and learned how to fly. 

Okay, this is a really difficult one to review. The story itself wasn’t bad at all, I enjoyed a lot of what was going on, but the sheer amount of info-dumping made this book a chore to get through. Seriously, there’s a quick few sentences at the start of every chapter, and often a huge chunk of text at the end of each chapter referencing a before time that really doesn’t need that much information.
Then there’s the bits where we discover something new and have to read several pages at at time about how it works and it’s history.
Honestly, it got old really fast.
This near 500 page book could have been edited down to around 350 and still had all the relevant info we needed for the plot.

Sometimes to achieve what you know is right, you must do what others say is wrong.

The actual story was good. There’s plenty of conflict, a good gay representation, a girl who dresses as a boy, wonderfully majestic phoenixes, and a whole bunch of interesting plots to follow.
I will say there were some seriously obvious twists and even a few plot holes that I didn’t particularly enjoy, but it was good.
It certainly provides what it promises in the synopsis, but, after drowning in all the info-dumps, I was left feeling pretty underwhelmed by the whole experience.

Nothing about hope is foolish.

The characters are nicely developed, with Sev being my absolute favourite. They all have their own motives and voice, and I enjoyed watching their paths converge.
The worldbuilding was also really well done, but a little heavy in places. It would have been nice to see a little less of the war and a little more of the surrounding people and villages.

War has a way of making regular people into heroes.

I did have a bit of a problem with some of the advice one of the characters gives to another, though. Veronyka tells her friend that if you have fears and doubts, emotions and bad thoughts, that you should hide them in a locked space in your head. Basically, she advises him to bottle up his bad emotions and forget they ever existed. What?!
This pissed me off so much because it’s just not healthy! Seriously, this is a young adult book here, don’t you think that the young people that read this are going to try and keep their problems to themselves instead of sharing them with someone who could help them?
Not only is this bad advise, it’s downright dangerous! Bottling up your thoughts, fears and feelings is never healthy, and should never be the advise given in any format, least of all a book specifically aimed at one of the highest risk groups there is. Check out this quote for example—It’s a way of keeping bad thoughts and feelings locked up inside my mind. Maybe you could do the same thing but put your fear there instead. 

I won’t be going on to read the sequel when it comes out, but the story itself was nice enough.

Villain Rating

Veronyka’s cruel sister Val is my villainess for this book. She’s very strong and protective of her sister, but this is a seriously abusive relationship from the get go. Not only does she control Veronyka’s every move and thought, but she controls how she uses her magic too. She has an emotional hold over her and uses it control every aspect of her sister’s life.

She is revealed as a killer early on in the book, acquiring plenty of human bones for the fire to hatch the phoenix. Veronyka doesn’t seems surprised by this action at all, so it’s reasonable to assume Val kills regularly. Then, of course, she poisons the phoenix for no other reason than jealousy. She callous and cold and could make an incredibly dangerous villain in future books. Her motives stem back in time quite a ways but they’re solid enough to give her an plausible reason for her cruelty and manipulations. 8/10

Happy Reading,

Claire