Fire & Flood (Fire & Flood #1)
Victoria Scott
Chicken House
Spoilers
For some reason, my brain wouldn't remember the main character's name- it's Tella. I now can't remember half the characters' names.
I've seen reviews where people have complained about how Tella is portrayed and tbh, she's a mood. Poor decision making and vanity. She takes makeup and nail polish for a race, like, how can I not relate to her? This is only mild sarcasm.
I assume her cutting her hair at the beginning of the book is a metaphor of sorts? It sort of read as one- especially if it had taken place later in the book.
Tella's flaw work with the story. At the beginning of the book she's vain and naïve and kinda selfish, 95% of my traits. We see Tella thrown in at the deep end because she's entirely unprepared for what's to come.
I think a big problem is the set up of the book. Tella enters a race she's never heard of, with little to no information, and then puts herself in situations she thinks are dangerous for the lols.
The love interests were bizarre. The two options were;
1)A guy Tella described as looking like a "serial killer", suggested he made her uncomfortable/ she was scared of him, Tella follows him for days
2)A guy who kidnaps Tella, sexually harasses Tella, tries to kill Tella/her friends/ her Pandora, never really was a love interest but ya know. I can't remember his name and I'm not about to look through the book to find it.
This is one of those book where the love interest(s) are unnecessary and probably detract from the book. But, tbh there's a lot of books where the romance is the main focus but shouldn't be- technically this book doesn't fall under that category because the romance is kinda rushed and then ignored occasionally.
The main love interest is called Guy. That's a sin on its own. No offence to people called Guy. He's just a bit meh and lowkey all over the place. I'm here to save my cousin, but also I'm here to stop the Brimstone Bleed by competing in it because of this thing that'll only be revealed in the last chapter that lowkey makes little sense. How does Guy know so much again? I think it's explained but I don't remember.
There's a weird fascination with rape/ sexual assault/ harassment to unpack that I don't really want to unpack. Gotta love reading about a character who is constantly saved by everyone else and those who try to assault her. Like, the guy who kidnapped Tella kills another guy because he grabbed her arse- because he sees Tella as his property not as some sort of weird "respect women" move".
I really could have gone without this part of the plot. I've dropped books before because of shit like this but I didn't because I wanted to see if Tella killed the guy- she did.
So:
- The guy kidnapping Tella because she has a powerful Pandora and thinks getting her onside will help him get control of it- fine, I guess, I'll allow it.
- The guy kidnapping Tella because she has a powerful Pandora and thinks getting her onside will help him get control of it and he wants to date her or something but she's not interested so all of his advances are non-consensual- stop it, get some help.
And now that I think about it- how did the Brimstone Bleed get the device into Tella's house? Her parents and brother didn't put it there, they live in the middle of no where so they would've noticed someone near their house. Why didn't I think about this when I read the book??
Anyway, I already own the second book so I might as well read it. Though I've read somewhere that it was meant to be a trilogy but the third book never got published or something. Lmao
I gave this book 2 out of 5 stars because it has potential, I guess.
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