Somewhat Spoilery Review
I was honestly not expecting Brightly Burning to be as good as it was. I don’t think I was expecting it even through the first bit with Lan’s victimization at the hands of his bullies. Brightly Burning is really good. Not something I think I’ll be rereading anytime soon due to emotional turmoil, but yeah… my eyes are still leaking tears as I write this.
I hate the way Nelda Chitward goes about parenting after Lavan’s confession of being bullied. Jumping straight to victim blaming when told of his bully. Ma’am, you’ve clearly never been bullied in your life, and especially not with the threat of no one believing you held over you. Add to that, that she wouldn’t believe it due to the family Tyron came from… entitled brats will be entitled brats, especially when they think they can get away with it, regardless of family standing. What the Sixth Formers are doing is some bullshit. Tyron is a sadist.
Cloistered Order of Kernos-Sequestered is fucking crazy-pants and I don’t understand how that’s even a thing. A good thing it exists, for Jisette Jelnack’s imprisonment, but like… how do you get more followers? Solitary is inhumane and to essentially have a religious order that practices it… what even? Religion is largely stupid, in my opinion, and doubly so in this instance. The fact that the Kernos-Sequestered thing isn’t as bad as I thought it probably would be doesn’t actually help matters.
The way Valdemaran troops treat Lan after his big debut on the battlefield brought tears to my eyes. Happy ones, cuz lord knows he deserves the praise. Lan’s anxiety beforehand was completely understandable, especially considering what he’d been through. Little bit sad though. Probably what ultimately prompted my tears… a complete reversal of events from what Lan thought might happen.
I quite liked Tuck, though he did fade into the background during the last part of the book. Elenor, too, though I really do hate that whole unrequited love thing she has going on… I’ve never been one to have crushes like that, so it didn’t connect with me. Pol and Satiran were amusing together. I completely get Pol’s sense of duty and I’m glad his sight was mostly restored in the end.
I did see the ending coming from a mile away. That said, it was still quite moving and, as I said at the beginning, I did tear up. Brightly Burning is definitely up there in terms of my favorite Valdemar books. Kind of intense and definitely not one to reread super often. It’s a really good stand alone novel.
Favorite Line
:Emotional crisis is the constant state of the young, Chosen,: Satiran chuckled. :That's why they can eat so much; they burn it up with emoting.:
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