The Burning White

** spoiler alert ** I’ll start off by saying this is only a 3 star book for me, but it’s a fine ending for this series. I do have disagreements with it, which I will go into, and I’m sorry if this review is a bit all over the map. There were so many things I wanted to touch on, but I don’t want this to be the size of the book itself. So, these are my main point and biggest thoughts on the story when I finished it.
The pacing was slow, but saw that coming. This story has a lot of tangents, mainly with Teia and Kip. Kip I get because it’s setting up obscure pieces for him, but I got bored with Teia’s existential crisis.
I like the Order of the Broken Eye because it’s new in a fantasy setting, not just two armies at each other’s throats, there’s a third element, but it drags so much longer because of it.
Now, Gavin’s story line is still amazing, I love the revelations in the last book, and this one piles onto it as Gavin has to face his sins and really contemplate everything he’s done in life, as he climbs this spire to the literal gods.
About the immortal forces though, they are also confusing, and while they add another element to the war, it doesn’t seem 100% necessary. All of them could have been cut, and nothing much would have changed. If anything, the story might have been more concise and tighter without them.
I ended up liking them only because I connected it to the story of Troy where the gods intervened too, and how there’s this whole other world we can’t see that’s also at war. But it still wasn’t necessary.
(Spoilers for the end starting here.)
And this ending?! The entire final battle climax, because it had to wrap up so much with so many characters, lasted probably more than 200 pages, with the last 100 cleaning up in the aftermath.
At first, I loved it, by the time I got to that final battle, after so long, I’m like “finally!” and while it lingered too, I was okay with it. This entire book took way too long to get here, so this final battle better be worth it and for the most part it was. For the most part.
Kip comes back from the freaking dead, taking away his entire emotional impact of that death on the reader. I would be fine with the entire end if he had stayed dead. But nope it’s all sunshine and rainbows, everyone is alive, and the bad guy was taken out in half a page.
One more thing I will give this book credit for, well half a credit, is its character growth. Gavin faced down his sins, and even chose his original name Dazen. He promises to be a better person, and to try to change for the better, but it’s not a hard switch. It’s something he knows he must work at. Which is realistic.
Similarly, Kip learned to really trust in himself and be proud of who he is and what he accomplished.
But Andross Guile, I’m not buying. He’s supposedly learned this great lesson two about being less of a manipulative jerk, and to try to heal things with his family given the crimes he committed. Yes, he may feel remorseful for most of it. But not everyone can be redeemed.
It’s like Tywin Lannister turning to Tyrion going, “sorry I was a jerk to you your entire childhood, but we’re cool now right?” – No!
There was a lot of deus ex machina by the end, with the literal gods stepping in more than once, but once I made the Troy connection, I was okay with it.
Mostly, I still think the immortals didn’t add much, but it made the endings here less aggravating because of them stepping in. Bit of a grey area there for me.