This post is extremely late, considering So Let Them Burn was our JANUARY bookclub pick. But hey, you love me, so we're gonna make it through this. Nervous chuckles

And don't worry, I will get you my review of our February book (I Don't Wish You Well) this week too. Also, very unlike myself, I am almost done reading our March book (The Trees)! Clap for me, everyone! lol

But anyway, back to The Divine Traitors Duology.

Disclaimer: Because I am reviewing a finished duology, there really isn't a way for me to go forward without some spoilers. I will try to limit them, but some of my thoughts are about the second book and will unfortunately reveal a bit about what takes place in the first book.

Synopsis...

So Let Them Burn picks up five years after our main character, Faron Vincent, turned the tide in an unwinnable war and saved her Island using the power of the gods. As their chosen vessel, she alone has the ability to channel their power, which she used to beat back a superior military and the dragons they rode into battle. Now, five years later, her life is turned upside down when her sister, Elera Vincent, is magically bonded to one of those dragons during a peace summit where the sisters were expected to represent their people. A problem that is made even worse when they discover a new madness that many of the dragons, and their riders, are succumbing to.

This story is a dual POV, following each of them as they do their part to fix this nightmare of a situation. For Elera, that means traveling to the kingdom of Langley so she can be trained in how to navigate her new dragon-bond and hopefully survive the madness, while maybe spying just a little bit on behalf of her Queen. And for Faron, it means searching for a way to break her sister's dragon bond, despite the fact that the gods have already told her that the only option is to kill Elera.

This Ends in Embers follows the haunting result of those efforts. Elera's bond has been broken and she has replaced her sister as the vessel of the gods. Meanwhile Faron is being held captive by the first dragon and a rogue godlike figure. And instead of fighting to free themselves, or to protect their island, the sisters are now being called upon to save the world from a long forgotten enemy that is desperate for revenge.

My thoughts...

Y'all, Kamilah wasn't fucking around with these books. That's all I've got to say. Ok, it's not all i've got to say, but it is definitely high on the list of things I needed to express. I found myself desperate for more the entire time I was reading. Originally, my intention was to read the first one with my bookclub and then to move on to the rest of the books I have sitting here half-finished before circling back for the sequel. But the moment I read the RUDE and HAUNTING ending to So Let Them Burn, I had no choice but to finish the series immediately.

Look, I love dragons, I love badass heroes, I love complicated villains and I especially love NIGGAS. And this duology gave me all of that and more.

Our main character knows she's the shit. Which we know because we don't meet her in battle, or living an ordinary life, or even struggling to survive. No, we meet her as she is audaciously channeling the power of the GODs to win a footrace and humble and irritating neighborhood boy.

WHAT?!

I absolutely love it. lol.

In a lot of fantasies, especially YA fantasies, our hero starts as a quiet nobody who then matures into an honest and Noble knight. And after they have toppled the tyrant and set everything right, they humbly bow out and try to keep the world balanced. And that is perfectly fine. But... that is NOT our girl Faron. She knows she is the savior of her people and she has no qualms about sitting directly in the spotlight she damn well earned. And I love that for her. Even though her big head leads her to believing that she can outsmart the gods and achieve the impossible.

But like... was she wrong?

When her sister was bonded to an enemy dragon against her will, Faron's FIRST effort was to call on the gods for help. And their only advice was to kill her. From their own mouths, they confessed to not having the power to fix this problem. So, what was she supposed to do? Listen to them?!

As a veteran fantasy reader, that was absolutely not the solution.

I really can't blame her for assuming the God's knew more than they were letting on. That's... that's how Divine beings behave in every story we've ever been told. They see themselves as significantly above the mortals they rule and only share what they feel is necessary to get them to comply. So Faron's choice to choose her sister over her allegiance to the gods is reasonable. But it also speaks to the relationship she had with them. Which is ultimately what everything boils down to in this story. Relationship.

Her relationship with the gods. Her relationship with Elora. Her relationship with her Island. Her relationship with herself. This story is an exploration of all of that, all while she is being asked to focus in and save the world. With half the necessary information, I might add.

And let's not forget that she was only seventeen.

Her love for her family and for her people is what led her to, at just twelve years old, become beholden to a nation that desperately needed her and a pantheon of Gods who were eager to use someone in a war that ultimately started with their own failures. Which is one of the points that I think could be easy to miss if you're not paying attention.

Yes, Faron made choices in this story that blew her world up. But none of this started with her. Sure, she was the one who asked the gods to empower her to save her people during the first war with Langley. But, as the story unravels, we are now learning that the only reason Langley had the level of power they did is because of mistakes the gods had never properly made up for to begin with.

The dragons never belonged in their world to begin with. Which means that seeing Faron as a little girl blessed with power from the gods to protect her people isn't an honest lens. Not really. In reality, she was being used. She was a weapon the gods were happy to send out into the world to fix their own fuckups. Which only gets more and more screwed up the more information they are FORCED to reveal.

Faron's story is entirely wrapped up in her navigating relationships and allegiances as she cleans up a mess that never should have belonged to her world to begin with. And while this story is about a 17 year old Black girl and her sister fighting dragons... I don't know... I feel like there is a conversation to be had here as well.

How we navigate our relationship with the divine matters. And how we navigate our relationship to humanity matters. For a lot of people, those are conflicting conversations. But they shouldn't be. In this story, no matter what power looked like--whether it came from the gods or the dragons--Faron was ready to lose it all if keeping it meant losing her sister. Or her humanity.

At first glance, the risks she takes feel irresponsible and reckless. And hey, maybe they are. But they are also... i don't know... right.

Obviously, I don't know what Kamilah wanted us to see there. I am just telling you what I reflected on as I read. For me, this story reminded me of how often holding onto our humanity comes with consequences.

When Faron was willing to do what she was told and be the gods weapon on their terms, she was the hero of her people. But the moment she refused to use their power on their terms, and to insist that her humanity not be a casualty in their war, she not only lost access to them, but she lost the glory that came with being their weapon. Which would have never happened had they actually given her the information and power she needed to protect herself, rather than protecting themselves from having to face their own mistakes.

Now, none of that means that her decisions were all made with a clear head, or even that they were all good decisions. But I struggle to see her choice to honor the full scope of her humanity as a flaw.

And interestingly enough, it really wasn't the gods who cleaned the mess up in the end anyway. It was a group of people exactly like Faron, who refused to let go of their humanity.

Like I said before, I don't know what Kamilah meant for us to pull out of this story, but for me, it was a beautiful call to remember our humanity and to refuse to let go, no matter the cost. We watched as people wrestled with their relationship with history, with other nations, with government, with family, with the gods, with their own mortality. And I don't know... I just found it all beautiful. I can't wait to see what else Kamilah brings us in the future!

What did you take away from this story? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!