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Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Pages: 368

Point of View: Third (Echo, Caius, Dorian, Ivy, with one chapter by Ala and Jasper)

Released: April 28th 2015

Series: The Girl At Midnight 1

Predictability: 5 out of 5 (Where 1 is totally unpredictable and 5 is I knew what was going to happen way ahead of time.)

Source: Netgalley

My Rating: 7/10 Stars

My Summary:

Echo was adopted by the Avicen, a bird like race, when she was seven. She considers them her family and her people, but not all Avicen feel the same way about her. They’ve been at war with the Drakharin , a dragon people, for as long as anyone can remember.

Echo’s a thief so when she wants a present for her adoptive mother, the Ala she steels a music box. Hidden inside the box was a map to the legendary Firebird said to be capable of ending the war. The Ala sends Echo on a mission to retrieve it, which is complicated when she runs into a pair of Drakharin who are also after the firebird.

My Review:

It took me a while to get into this book, but I think that was mostly my own fault. (I was worrying about having so many arcs to read)

Part of this book feels like Daughter of Smoke and Bone and there’s a little Mortal Instruments going on with the romance and a hidden market that is quite Harry Potter ish, and while I can see the similarities it isn’t just a copy cat.

The Good:

The world was awesome! Two races, one birdlike and one dragonlike have been at war for ages. I would have liked to see a bit more of their culture, but I enjoyed what there was. The magic wasn’t used much besides for transport. The use of powder to travel through doorways was cool though. (Actually not like Daughter of Smoke and Bone)

The characters weren’t great on their own, but once they got together the story really picked up. Echo was a fine heroine, but she didn’t overly interest me. A spunky thief has just been done so many times before. (I liked how she collected foreign words though, cute touch.) Caius, the Dragon Prince came off stern and unsympathetic, but once he met Echo I enjoyed his character. Same with Dorian, aside from a crush on his prince he was rather an unlikable solider, but then he met Jasper. (Here is the main Mortal Instruments comparison. Jasper is a lot like Magnus Bane, albeit a feathery peacock version.) The last member of the group was Ivy, Echo’s best friend and a young dove like healer. She was sweet and I liked her from the start. What made the character relationships was the teasing! (Which is probably why I liked them better once they all got together.)

The Bad:

There is a love triangle! Echo has a boyfriend who is a young Avicen solider in training when the story starts. I wish they’d just been friends, then her making goo goo eyes at Caius would’ve made more sense. (A bit too much lovey dovey stuff for me.)

All of the guys are described as overly good looking. And even though everyone else was described multiple times, I can’t even remember what color hair Echo has.

Will I read the sequel? Yes.

Am I the only one who gets panicky when I get a little behind on arcs? One down, seven to go before June 2nd…