Burn Bright by Marianne de Pierres

“Listen well, baby bats. Burn bright, but do not stray from the paths. Remember, when you live in a place of darkness you also live with creatures of the dark.”

Retra is a Seal, restricted in speaking, in learning, in living… she’s is Sealed off from the outer world. Ixion is the place of ever-night, a place for pleasure and for letting go.

When Retra escapes to Ixion to find her brother, everything that she’s been taught is torn apart. Fighting against her Seal nature to fit in, Retra only draws more attention to herself from not only her fellow escapees but the watching eyes of the Guardians, people, no, creatures who watch over the inhabitants of Ixion...

Ixion may be a place for pleasure, but behind its colourful lights and deafening music there is a darker force at work, one that is coming after Retra.

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Quick mention on how GORGEOUS the cover is, gorgeous I tell you. I love the paint streaks and splatters. It’s really attention grabbing, my preeeccciiiooooouuussss….

**strokes cover**
Ahem—excuse me.

Anyway, Retra, hmm… Well, she’s a very different character, a Seal, she has different behaviours and attitudes. At first I was a little confused but then it eventually all made sense, she’s from a place called Grave, a specific sealed off area where they live restricted lives etc. And so, Retra at first finds it very difficult to assimilate into the different behaviours of Ixion, or so she keeps saying, but to me, she seemed to fit right in. eventually. Still, it seemed a tad quick. And she was kind of contradicting herself sometimes, she’ll say/ think something but do something completely different. Oh well. All part of her character I guess.

I like the idea of how Retra practiced enduring pain (as morbid as that sounds) so that she could find her brother, she’s very noble but again very naïve. And slightly spontaneous. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not but it really helps in developing the story… any time things seem a little slow, add a little spontaneousness and voila! Hehehe. I find it funny that she’ll act out in some things but at other times she’ll freeze up << again contradicting Other than that, I’m not sure what to think of Retra really, she just keeps changing… her character keeps flopping all over the place, she’s a seal. She’s not. She’s brave. She’s not. She’s suicidal (not really). She’s not. You get my point.

The other characters are all very different, having their own strengths and talents, but although Retra makes friends/ allies I feel like I don’t really know them… they’re just names to fill in the space of friend. There’s some history revealed about them but again, it doesn’t really seem personal, more quoting out of a fictitious textbook. To be honest I didn’t even feel that much distress when any of Retra’s friends/ acquaintances were in danger/ dying, because I didn’t really know them. Gosh that sounds cold o_O

There is some sort of relationship/ interest between Retra and Lenoir, and Retra and Markes. I really hope this doesn’t become a weirdly twisted love triangle. Lenoir is one of the leaders of the Ripers who are the island’s mysterious Guardians, but the relationship between Retra and Lenoir is somewhat confusing (read the book and you’ll understand).The relationship between Markes and Retra is kind of weird; it seems to be a one way relationship, with Retra attracted to Markes who is slightly oblivious and dismissive towards her. Gah.

The idea of Burn Bright is very original, exciting, and new. I was completely drawn in by the emotive description of the scenes but I at first failed to see a point in having a world where everyone parties, indulges themselves etc. But of course, as we continue I was proved wrong and things begin to have a meaning, things begin to fall into the place of a more intriguing plot –correction –a creepier plot. In a good way.

Now, there were some pretty confusing things in this book, things were slightly jumpy and again, spontaneous. Things just randomly jump out at you and completely change things in a couple of words. You’ve got characters “bonding” and events careening off the page. Catastrophes, explosions, dead people. Yeah. That’s pretty much it :)

The odd thing, and probably intended thing, is that I still want to read more… the weird and quirky events are actually really riveting (though they’re also quite disturbing), and the story is good in a way that you just can’t predict what’s going to happen. Something that was also really confuzzling (new word :D) were the Guardians and their role on the island but that’s part of the bigger plot mystery so it’s all right, but the annoying thing is I felt like I was just beginning to piece things together… and the book ended. Darn. I hate it when that happens.

The writing is good, especially in the way Marianne de Pierres describes her scenes, she makes them seem magical. The writing is easy to follow and simple but effective. Yah. That’s it. Oh! The book is also a good size, so it won’t take you long to finish it once you get into the story, promise.

Overall, Burn Bright was an excellent start to a new and promising series, filled with dark secrets and creepy crawly things, and romance (maybe? I’m not too sure what to think of the supposed romance) :)