This book was completely YA, It was my mistake expecting anything different.. I had thought that book 2 would rectify the shortcomings of book 1 but nothing changed, just everyone fawning over rei, and his shido upgrades. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this a military school?, and why is every occurrence in the book met with so much shock, I mean u can't go ten pages into the book without a character or even all of them being shocked about something. The book could have been better if everything wasn't so fixated on rei, it's always about him, I get its supposed to be so since it's his story but it doesn't have to be so blatantly shoved in my face. Every time rei walks into class 1a, everyone leaves whatever they are doing and starts muttering about him like he's the only thing that matters.
aren't they supposed to train to fight in the front lines?,
shouldn't their training be based off of fighting this enemies?
The characters aren't shown to have any motivation towards fighting this enemies, every one is just focused on the next upgrade.
" even the older characters overreacts to everything new, including Rei performance. granted that what he does is unprecedented, they should show some tact when voicing their thoughts.
a good example of this is major Reese. How did a character such as him get to where he is? All he did throughout this book was make childish tantrums, there was no change or subtlety shown to at least cover-up his mistakes from book 1 and it's quite disappointing that an adult is shown in such a way when the whole book is filled with teenagers acting stupidly.
I tried hard to take these characters seriously but I just couldn't there is no depth to any of them.
Rei is the hardworking protagonist that knows pain and can easily overcome it.
Viv is the hot tempered friend, easily angered when it comes to her best friend but loves to date guys that beats him up.
Aria is the talented girl who blushes to every of Reis tease
Logan is the guy with a dark traumatic past that leaves him grumpy all the time, he's also the villain that converts to good because he got defeated.
more annoyingly in this book things are always blown out of proportion.
here's an instance
"Theyâre getting bold." said rei
âThey are,â Dent replied first. âBut more than that, theyâre getting dangerous. They could have killed you.â
in this scene Reis test was tampered with and I agree that was dangerous, but what everyone fails to mention is he didn't have to go through with it till the end. He could have pulled out when he noticed it was too much for him, but no he insisted on staying too long to meet a goal he set for himself. not considering the damage he's doing to himself, that would have been ok if this was something that has only occured once but no he had made this same mistake before and had even been warned to know his limit. he's the one that got hurt to prove nothing. He being childish decided to push himself too far despite noticing the strangeness of the test. The boy could have taken a knee but he didn't, I get that it's in his character trait to be stubborn but at least make it reasonable. it was as if passing the fortitude test would grant him some insane reward but it doesn't. It wasn't worth the injuries he sustained and the payoff wasn't something he anticipated so the risk was meaningless.
The way this book revolves solely around rei is quite off-putting, it's just too much , they are acting like he's the saviour of mankind whenever he does something improbable. The boy has potential, that's good , but against the real enemy it's yet to be seen that he'll succeed, but they all act like it's a fact that he'll be something. And having an unlimited growth potential doesn't mean he'll live long to achieve it, the fawning over him should have being dialed down.
here's another instance from one of their instructors Valera dent. she said
"None of you got here without pushing yourselves, without breaking your limits again and again and again. Iâm proud of youâso damn proud of youâbut Iâm also as aware as anyone sitting on this tram that that sort of drive can be a double-edged sword.â
Rei didnât miss the Bishopâs eyes flicking to him in particular, this time."
Things like this kept occurring in the whole book, like every thing of importance, every interaction must somehow end up with rei being the center of it. can't someone address a group rei is a part of without having some nuggets of wisdom or having a jab at him?.
My issues with this book just goes on and on that If I kept listing them one would think I have some issue with the writer or something.
And it seems the author has no intention to move this story further, there are probably going to be tournament arcs all the way to book 4.
At this point they might as well grant the MC the title of "the second coming of rei Jesus" since every mile stone he reaches is treated like a miracle.
Finally the whole matter with Viv was poorly done, and even finding out Logan's story wasn't enough to explain vivs breakdown at the first book, and her refusal to tell her best friend anything was just unreasonable.
she could have just said she knows something about grant that changes how she sees him and she just couldn't tell since it wasn't her story to share. That would have at least served to calm Rei but she chose to leave him hanging, because the story grant told made her fall in love with him. and the only explanation that the author gave to rationalize this was that Viv loves lost puppies. That was so witless that it made me laugh.
I'll give the author credit though, he knows how to write about teenagers and kids with emotional baggage, forced humour and lots of tournaments.
FIRE AND SONG a good name lost on a poor story.
