FIREWALKER
By Josephine Angelini
~Book Review~
Warning! Spoilers!
SOMETIMES I READ A
SERIES OUT OF ORDER. In this case, I couldn’t help it. The library only had
Firewalker, Book II of the WorldWalker Series, and the cover was so pretty that
I couldn’t resist.
So, at first I was
a bit confused digesting that a witch burning on a pyre could world-jump into
alternate realities, but then I thought, cool.
Now, Lily and Rowan aren’t my favorites. Rowan is pretty awesome but too
perfect. He never messes up and he always knows best. Lily is a breed of witch
known as a Mary Sue. She is so perfect that I was rooting for her evil
alternate dimension twin, Lillian, just because she was much more of a flawed
badass. But the world-building and creativity in this book made me so excited. I
felt like I was reading The Golden
Compass for the first time, except without the soulful characters.
Lily is a witch
and the only one who can stand against her twin Lillian, a powerful other
version of her that rules alternate Salem, in a world where warfare and
terrifying Woven beasts have destroyed much of the known world. Interestingly
enough, this means that First Nations peoples never experienced reservations
and still have their versions of tribes, one of which Rowan is from. Rowan used
to be in love with Lillian before she turned into a power-hungry dictator who
hung scientists. In this book, we see what drove Lillian’s decisions by
experiencing Lillian’s visits to Cinder Worlds, which again, is a very neat
idea.
Much of this book
is slow. Lily recovers, talks to Rowan, sleeps, talks to her mother, eats,
talks to her sister about a vague threat from a government agent, and then
recovers some more. Finally, her Earth friends Tristan, Breakfast, and Una say,
“Enough already, tell us what the hell is going on.” Interestingly enough, they
all show signs of being Mechanics, warriors who all specialize in certain
abilities like healing or fighting which are heightened once they are claimed
and fueled by a witch. Or that’s my Book II understanding of it, anyway. Still
majorly cool. They world-jump with Lily back to the Salem that’s in trouble and
start making their battle plan to stop Lillian before nuclear warfare breaks
out and the visions of a dead Cinder World comes to pass.
The hands-down
most awesome part of this book was The Hive. These are Woven who are yep, you
guessed it: killer bees! But not just
any killer bees. Their main fighters are the “Warrior Sisters,” who are as tall
as humans, have poisoned whips, and are supernaturally fast given their
insectoid eyesight and wings. Freakin’ awesome. I was riveted the entire scene
when they encounter The Hive. Usually fantasy novels speak with fear to hype up
certain mythical beasts and I think, yeah, yeah, so scary. But in this case,
the characters’ fear truly felt real.
There is a key
cliffhanger involving The Hive at the end of the book, and so I’ll have to get
my hands on Book III: Witch’s Pyre just
to see what happens. This is truly an imaginative book. The characters don’t
get much depth beyond what we typically see in YA Fiction, but Rowan,
Breakfast, and Una specifically are an endearing bunch, and the world-building
is top-notch.
Recommend for fans
of: Philip Pullman, Julie Kagawa, Susan Ee
Upcoming Book
Review: Fate Fallen by Sharon Stevenson
