DNFed this, it was too slow paced for me, and I wasn't able to get into the writing the way I would have liked to.

I received this free eARC novel from NetGalley. This is my honest review.

This has been on my TBR pile for so long, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. I really enjoyed the storyline and seeing the characters change throughout the story was a great character development. The plot was great and kept my attention. I'm glad I got the chance to read this and will be on the lookout for more in the future!

I was super excited about the prospect of this being a retelling of A Tale of Two Cities, especially with the added aspect of magic. With New York being divided between the Light and Dark sides, things got a little troublesome for our protagonist, Lucie, who was born on the Dark side but now lives in the Light side. Sarah Rees Brennan's writing continued to be as great as it always is, but I felt that the story was confusing and fell a bit flat. The characters were interesting and kept me going till the end. However I ultimately did not enjoy this one as much as I had hoped.

I requested this title back before my blogging break. I have ended up with a number of titles that are overwhelming to catch up on now I am back from my blogging break. I am regretfully not going to be reading and reviewing this title, but now I am back from my blogging break, I am looking forward to reading and reviewing some of your future titles. Thank you so much for the opportunity and apologies.

My interests have changed since I requested this book as I no longer primarily read YA. At this time, I won't reading or reviewing this title as it does not fit my current interests or the interests of followers of my blog/Instagram. Thank you.

I swapped my kindle back in 2018 and am unable to recover this title. I appreciate the opportunity that was given for review but sadly can't complete it for this title. However, based on the other works I know by this author I am awarding 4Stars.
Many thanks.

3.5 Stars
In a roundabout way I did enjoy this book. However I am left pondering so many whys? After the end I can easily say this book read more like a prologue, an opening to something bigger. I still don't know what the point of all the magic was since aside from Light and Dark, I didn't find it clear what the differences were aside from another form of bigotry and hierarchy. The way the book ends with the Dark side essentially taking over the Light side and eradicating all those in power was not necessarily a happy end either. Not to mention what the hell happens from here? I feel like I had half a story which is angering considering I really got into the story about a quarter of the way through. Lucie working with Ethan's doppelganger was a unique twist and while I'm glad she was able to save her boo and the doppelganger was actually a decent human being. But why did the doppelganger have to be so inherently good? The contradiction to his selfless act and the razing of the city was just wrong and in the grand scheme of things, it solves NOTHING. After becoming a symbol for the Dark side to use, I'm very glad Lucie took a stand and tried to use her power in ways she could. For her own family to manipulate that was just wrong and I wish we knew what her fate was? Hell was this the beginning of the end? Is the world now doomed because that's all I really get from this. The new "powers" that be got what they wanted at any cost and now will turn the fight amongst themselves for power. It'll be the same thing, different day and I guess I'd be happier if we had a little more from the end. Some type of conclusion or believable end when really I'm just left feeling sorry for Lucie and Ethan who really just want peace and no matter what it doesn't appear like that will be possible.

The book did not really work for me. I DNF'ed it. I wasn’t able to connect with any of the many characters in the book and I found myself putting down the book a lot because it was never really catching my attention.

Lovely work building, and a joy to read. The character development needed a bit more work but overall would recommend.

I unfortunately was not able to read this book. I was excited when ever I had chosen to download or pick this book up on Netgalley. However, time moves by so quickly and I never got to read it.

In a city divided between opulent luxury in the Light and fierce privations in the Dark, a determined young woman survives by guarding her secrets.

It took me a couple tries to get into this book, but I'm glad I did. It wasn't my favorite Sarah Rees Brennan book, but once I got into the the rhythm of it I greatly enjoyed Lucie's journey over a short period of time felt significant but understandable, and the characters grew on me as the book progressed. The ending broke my heart, but it wasn't the first time that has happened in one of Brennan's books.

I received this book free for an honest review from netgalley.

Okay so I’ve had this one sitting around for awhile and honestly I think I requested it because I actually knew who the author was lol. I haven’t read any Dickens so I have nothing to compare this retelling to so that’s not an issue for me. My issue was 75% of the story was boring and had no build up of how and why things were happening. I still don’t really understand the dark and light worlds. Also the only character that I really like is Carwyn. The other were nothing special.

I don’t think I would recommend this one.

This book was hard for me to get into. I don't mind books that just start right off with the story and then build up their world around that, and I think that's what Brennan was trying to do here. But unfortunately, it just left me struggling to try to understand this world and the history behind why it became the way it was. And the info-dumping was strong with this one guys.

Going in, I knew absolutely nothing about this book. It's one I've had on my kindle for awhile now and I'm really trying to get better about reading books I already own. So I had no idea this was a retelling/reimagining of A Tale of Two Cities. Now, I've never actually finished the Dickens classic but I know the gist of it. Still, I was lost. The world is split into dark and light. Lucie, our MC, was born in the dark but due to an act of selfishness (she even says it was), she is now the golden child of the Light. Somewhere along the line she dates the Golden boy of the Light, Ethan and together they make the perfect couple. But of course Ethan has a deep dark secret that comes out and just throws everything in chaos.

The secret was easy to guess, the plot was predictable and Carwyn was creepy and chalk full of instalove - even though he was supposed to have no feelings. I didn't understand his attachment to Lucie. I actually didn't understand anyone's attachment to anyone because nothing was ever explained and we weren't given time to really immerse ourselves in this world. It was very disappointing because it had potential, but it just wasn't for me.

The premise seemed really excited. However, the execution is lacking. It's too slow paced and gets into too many details in its first half, cutting the overall interest factor of the book.
Will shelve and give it another try in the future

2.5 stars

Yet another book I've read this year that starts poorly, but ends decently. If the rest of the book had been like the last 20-25%, I probably would've liked it more.

As every review of this book will mention, Tell the Wind and Fire (a beautiful title, btw), is a reimagining of A Tale of Two Cities. Obligatory disclaimer that, while I read AToTC in high school, it was at the end of the year, while we were doing AP exams, and since it wouldn't be necessary for that exam and I've never been a huge Dickens fan anyway, I have very little memory of the classic. I remember the oft-quoted lines at the beginning and near the end, plus the concept of characters being foils of each other. That's it. But that's fine. I have no clue how close TtWaF is to AToTC, but I'm not sure my enjoyment of the book would be enhanced by knowing more than those three things--all of which could be said to inform my (met) expectations of what the book contained.

In this book, the divided city is New York, with part of it populated by Light magicians and the other part populated by Dark magicians (with some exceptions). Revolution is sparked when Lucie, our protagonist, uses her light magic and youth to put on a show of innocence that gets her father out of a magical prison and both of them sent to Light New York. The rebels--sans-merci--in the Dark half of the city, use this to spark rebellion and revolution, claiming that she is being held captive by those who control the city. The book opens with Lucie's boyfriend Ethan, son and nephew to those who control the city, being accused of working with the sans-merci. Despite Lucie's knowledge that Ethan is far too good to have done wrong and his status as a Stryker, it looks like a death sentence for him, until a boy with the exact same face who just happens to be on the train too, points out that it might have been him that did the deed. Carwyn is Ethan's doppelgänger, his foil.

All the above information is introduced in the book in a confusing way. We aren't grounded in the setting beyond the words "light" and "dark" being said every other word. Lucie hints at her past, but not enough that we feel anything but confusion over it. The world's rules are thrown at us, and we're expected to accept them, even though we don't really understand the world yet. Lucie hints at knowing how to deal with guards, how to use their swords, but we can only guess as to what's fueling that knowledge (I incorrectly guessed that she had once been a guard-in-training). She throws around Ethan's last name and her title, but those have no meaning to *us.* Only a couple chapters in does she start explaining her background (she tries to excuse it by saying she started in the wrong place, but I happen to agree that she did). It's a chapter of telling us about what seems to be a very interesting episode in her life, but we see it at a distance, rather than living it with her. It's the catalyst for the main conflict of the book, but it happens off-screen.

From here Lucie gets to know Carwyn, trying to thank him for saving Ethan and treating him more fairly than most people would a doppelgänger. It's a pseudo-love triangle, in that she takes several actions that seem like she might like Carwyn, but for the whole book she stays steadfastly in love with Ethan (which is a nice change from most YA). While I thought Lucie was naive in this part, it was nice to watch them get to know each other a little.

If I thought there were hints that Lucie might be acting a little more naively than her character should be, I didn't quite grasp the oncoming wave of characters acting ignorant or downright stupid that was most of the rest of the book. When Carwyn pretends to be Ethan in places (as any good doppelgänger must at some point), he makes no attempt to act like Ethan...and yet nobody, even the people who know that he exists, guess that he is Ethan. Even when Lucie tries to explain why they're excusing "Ethan's" behavior, it seems like an all-too-convenient excuse for the author to let Carwyn make fun of Ethan while pretending to be Ethan and get away with it. I also got over Carwyn's attitude really fast, which is telling, since I often root for the bad-boy character. The Strykers, including Ethan, all seem to be easy to manipulate or make the wrong choices, and to make matters worse, there's Lucie, thinking how she knows better and *never saying anything*. So now we have the audience going in knowing better too, knowing that the Strykers are making stupid choices, and watching Lucie do literally nothing.

Until the revolution actually strikes. Finally Lucie does something, about equal to her described actions before the book began. As I've said before I really enjoyed the last quarter of the book. The characters all seem to finally act according to how we expect them to act...except for Carwyn, who does a 180 about then, based on something that was hinted at once. But he's forgiven because his role in the end is so excellent.

*I received a copy of the book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, though I am very late on it*

Recommended for fans of: YA non-fairytale retellings; AU contemporary fantasy; characters acting stupid or silent; magical dystopia; confusing world-building; catalyst before the book begins; bittersweet endings; too-sweet cupcakes

Unfortunately, TELL THE WIND AND FIRE is not the book for me. I tried to get into it, but didn't like the narration.

DNF
I didn't like the storyline or the worldbuilding
Thought I think this is a great idea, the execution didnt work for me. It felt to generic

Tell the Wind and Fire is a retelling of A Tale of Two Cities set in an unpleasant future. In Lucie Manette's world all of humanity is divided into the Light and the Dark. Dependent on the dark magicians, the ruling Light keeps them close in divided cities. Lucie escaped the Dark with her broken father and became a symbol for the both the Light and the Dark.

I found the setting of this book incredibly intriguing. It is very atmospheric and gritty. Lucie is kind of like Katniss in Mockingjay in that she is being used by all parties against her will, and the stakes are very high. I also really liked how Sarah Rees Brennan used doppelgangers to explain why Ethan had an exact lookalike (always a suspend-your-disbelief aspect of A Tale of Two Cities). The whole doppelganger element was very interesting--how they are created, the implications for Ethan's family, how the doppelgangers are treated. Also, I like that this futuristic, dystopian tale is not a series. It felt so good to have the whole story.

The biggest problem in this book is that the characters are pretty flat. Lucie is definitely the most fully developed, but I didn't love her interminable inner monologue. So much guilt about all her lies. Lots and lots of thinking, and it got repetitive, especially as the book was nearing the conclusion. Lucie and Ethan don't really have much chemistry. They just tell us over and over again how in love they are. Of the three main characters, I thought Carwyn was the most interesting, and he and Lucie were pretty entertaining together. I laughed out loud at some of their snipes.

In cases of retellings, the reader often knows where the plot is going (I've read A Tale of Two Cities twice), so the book's enjoyment is not necessarily in discovering what comes next, but in how the author recasts a familiar story and makes it new and interesting. There were a lot of interesting things about Tell the Wind and Fire, but, because I wasn't surprised by any of the plot twists, it made some of the weaker aspects of the story all the more evident.

I've wanted to read Sarah's books for years and since this is a stand-alone I thought it would be a good choice. It wasn't. The characters are cookie-cutter copies of every single YA character ever written, there's an awful love triangle, the worldbuilding was non-existent and the plot bored me to tears. I really hope her other books are better than this because I was so disappointed.