Opening line:
"It was the best of times until it was the worst of times."

I should have realized from the opening line that this book would be similar to one of my favorite Dicken's stories: Tale of Two Cities. That might be why I loved this story. Or maybe it's the storytelling, how the author wove love and war in between each other. Or maybe it's because of the main character, Lucie, and her journey to understand herself, her enemies and her destiny.

This story is literally light and dark battling each other. Lucie is from the Dark City, but because she freed her father from the "cages" the politicians in the Light City decided to hold her up as an example of someone from the other side choosing correctly. She always does what everyone tells her; she believes this is the only way to keep her loved ones safe. But what about her own soul? That is the Lucie's theme throughout the story. When is lying okay? And killing? And revenge?

About half way through the book, Lucie realizes she doesn't really know the people she loves. She will not trade secrets and therefore, doesn't know what hides behind her loved ones masks.

I did skim some of the info/backstory dumping but found it was part of the secrets.
i felt the ending was over too quickly but not sure how it would end otherwise.

For the sensitive reader: war, death, killings, kissing

Thanks to netgalley for the read!

LOVED THIS love the author a lot too. The book was so clever and funny.

This story had promise with a heroine that was determined to do right but then it all went downhill. Stuck in a sort of love triangle she tries to fight her way through a revolution of a futuristic New York stuck between two groups, dark and light. I liked both heroes as they represented each of the factions in totality. The writing was very good in terms of character descriptions and relationship build ups. However the plot was very confusing, what was she fighting and what kind of ending was that. This non ending with no questions answered totally ruined the book for me . The extra star is for the picturesque world building.

I liked that this was a modern retelling of a Tale of a two Cities. I loved the world building involved, though I found the story to wane a bit in the middle. Over all it was good. I’d read more from this author in the future.

This one was surprising because the majority of my friends didn't like it, yet I was pleasantly surprised. While I didn't love it, I still enjoyed the story. It is a tale of two cities retelling and I thought the way the parallels worked out was very interesting! I liked seeing the similar plot points appearing in this fantasy world where there is light and dark and magic.

The middle dragged a bit though. I mean, it's not long before the action picks up again but there is a definite lag in pace. I also ended up not being the biggest fan of Lucy, who is one of our main characters, but the other characters made up for it. I really liked the ending though and thought it was so fitting. I would recommend if you are at all a fan of A Tale of Two Cities because I thought the way it was retold was unique and original!

Review can be found on my blog at the following link. Link will be live on 1/23/18.

I really enjoyed the concept of this book. It felt very unique with the Light and Dark magic and the way the worlds were divided.

The Good:

The world: I liked that the light and dark worlds were dependent on each other so even though they weren’t exactly friends, each was a necessary evil. It gave a layer of complexity to the story. I also really liked how unique the magic was.

Dopplegangers: What an interesting concept that I’ve never really seen in a book before. I loved the unique way these creatures were created and I loved the question posed about their humanity.
The message: I loved the themes of equality and human rights present throughout this book. I really enjoyed watching the main character learn to re-evaluate the way she looks at the world and the people around her: both Light and Dark

Tale of Two Cities Parallels: I love A Tale of Two Cities and really enjoyed seeing the parallels between Sarah’s world and Charles Dickens’.

The Bad:

Not going to lie, the main character was a bit annoying at first. She was also somewhat one-dimensional and I never fully connected to her. I think she got better as the story went on, but I wanted a little more character development.

The pace was a little slow moving at times. It felt kind of stop and go for me. In particular, I felt like there was a bit of a lag in the middle.

Overall, I liked the story. I still really want to read her Lynburn Legacy as I’ve heard tons of good things about it!

Read this before it came out but apparently never did write the review [oops]. I didn't love this as much as id hoped to, sadly. Carwyn was my favorite character, which is kind of funny because I don't know if we're even really supposed to like him? Ethan was just meh. I liked Lucie okay, but her being the symbol of hope for the rebellion was...interesting. overall, didn't hate it as much as other reviewers I've seen, but didn't love it either. In truth, the story may have been better served as a longer book or a duology, so the plot didn't feel so choppy and chaotic and so we got to know the characters on a more than superficial level. Also would've helped give time to actually *explain* how the world just suddenly had magic!

I tried to understand it but it felt too complicated. Maybe I'll try again later.

Full disclosure, I have never read A Tale of Two Cities. I KNOW, I should, and I’ve lost some Brit Lit cred in your eyes. This book is a fantasy retelling of the Dickens novel, set in an alternate future where Dark and Light magic have torn society apart, to the point that the two cities are vastly different parts of New York.

The protagonist, Lucie, differs from the Dickensian Lucie Manette in that she is the central figure and the narrator. She also has a lot of dark secrets. For being 17 in the book, Lucie is incredibly mature, and very socially adept. She is famous on both the Light and Dark sides for being “The Golden Thread in the Dark,” a symbol of hope and devotion, and also of resistance.

The romance between Lucie and Ethan Stryker, the son of one of the most important men in the city, is a constant source of conflict and drives most of the plot. Despite this, the emotions she carries didn’t become cloying, in my opinion, although it did seem a bit unrealistic that a 17 year old could be so steady and self aware.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has read A Tale of Two Cities, and those who have not but would be interested in a female protagonist with an unwavering focus.

This book wasn't for me.

Simply could not get into the story.
Nor did anything pull me to continue reading.

Did not finish.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the readers copy.

This book started off great but deteriorated as it went on. I loved Carwyn and he was a great example of how amazing SRB is at writing sarcastic characters. However, I think the world-building was a little bit weak and I didn’t fully understand the society and why it ended up that way. I also felt that in the second half of the book, things went a bit downhill and the characters became less likeable. I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending, though that’s more an issue with original source material, seeing as this is a retelling. I guess I just expected this retelling to have a different ending, a twist on the original, and was a little disappointed that it didn’t. The writing was great though and that’s what made me read until the end.

I feel really bad that it took me so long to get through this but I was confused through nearly the entire book. I started over multiple times and couldn't shake the idea that this was the third or fourth book in a series and I was missing important information that I needed to know for everything to make sense. Sadly that wasn't the case and nothing ever connected the dots for me.

I came to find out that this was a tale of two cities retelling. But, I've never read that book and didn't know even the basic story line. Perhaps the author was thinking that readers would have that information and that was what I was missing for this book to make sense?

I'm disappointed since I have heard very good things about this author. I'm going to try another story that is not a retelling and see if that is more up my alley.

Thank you again for the egalley, but this wasn't for me.

I have been putting this book off for a LONG time due to its mixed reviews. But I recently picked it up and I'm afraid that I'm on the Dark side. I would quite simply describe this book as standard- nothing more, nothing less. When I heard Tale of Two Cities retelling, I was quite excited but- alas- turns out that doesn't work as well as I was hoping. I'm starting to get annoyed with societies being split into two groups- as if real life is that simple. You're either one or the other. Yeah, right. The world would probably be a lot more harmonious if we all fit into either one box or the other. So that was something standard right off the bat. Also, the plot is just- you guessed it- standard. Things just happen one after the other. There is no suspense and something that compels me to read on. I was just there. The plot also didn't make a whole lot of sense. We had the doppelgänger, the Lucie and Ethan fighting, to running around eating cupcakes and all sorts. Like, what?
Overall, there were some unique ideas in this story but they weren't exploited properly and the characters didn't make me want to invest too much time in this book so I just skimmed it.

I ended up buying this book. It was fantastic and I loved how fast-paced the story was.

This poor book sat on my virtual TBR shelf for ages. It sounded interesting, so I requested and was approved for it on NetGalley… but then I never quite felt in the mood for an urban fantasy. Unfortunately, when I finally made myself read it, I still wasn’t quite in the mood for an urban fantasy.

To start off with, this book is based on A Tale of Two Cities. I’ve never read that one, but I honestly don’t really like classics. I know. Blasphemous. But it’s true. Sorry, not sorry.

The atmosphere is really dark. Which makes sense, but it was darker than I was in the mood for. There’s another strike.

The characters just never pulled me in. I really didn’t care about any of them. The only character that actually interested me at all was the doppleganger, but we honestly didn’t get to know enough about him to really even care about what happens to him.

The plot moved at a snails pace. There were at least two instances where I thought about quitting, only for things to pick up again shortly after. I did make it til the end, and the ending was interesting, but like I said before, I wasn’t invested in the characters or the plot enough to actually care about the big “twist” that occurred.

In all, this was a rather lackluster read for me. Fans of both Dickens and urban fantasy may enjoy this one, but unfortunately it just didn’t do it for me.

Tell the Wind and Fire is a young adult novel that is heavily inspired by A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. The theme of the story is the same just some details and facts have been changed to make it more of a “modern” story. This story is set with an ominous tone and throughout the story I couldn’t help but think over and over again about how unfair life is. The good guys and the bad guys are just relative to what side you are siding with. What happens when you become the symbol (pawn) in a civil war (rebellion) that you didn’t even know was happening?

The story follows Lucie as she two years after she was liberated from Dark New York City to Light New York City. Lucie is happy and content now with her life in the Light. She doesn’t talk much about her life from before because there are too many secrets that would endanger her status. Secrets that would have her killed. At the beginning of the novel, Lucie and her boyfriend, Ethan, are on vacation. As they are traveling back to Light New York, Ethan is ripped from her arms and sentenced for immediate execution because he was seen giving secrets to the sans merci, a Dark group bent on rebellion. Lucie can’t save him, she can’t think of a valid excuse to keep him alive until a doppleganger wearing Ethan’s same face interrupts his execution. Lucie, Ethan and Carwyn (the doppleganger) are brought back to the city to face justice but instead it is swept under the rug. No one can know Ethan has a doppleganger because it is illegal to have one.

He looked like Ethan. I hadn’t confused the two of them, but seeing the familiar, beloved lines of his face, even on someone else, had confused me. I’d been able to be familiar with him, to take chances on him without feeling as if they were the deadly, life-altering risks they were.

Because of that, I’d trusted him, much more than I should have, when I shouldn’t have trusted him at all. He was my beloved’s shadow self, an image made out of darkness, but worse than that he was a stranger, and I did not know what he was capable of.

Lucie is swept unwillingly into a revolution in her name. As the Golden Thread in the Dark, the Dark believe that she will save them. They believe that Ethan’s family has been holding her as a prisoner. Lucie is just trying to keep herself and her friends alive. She hates what has been going on in Dark New York but she really hasn’t been doing much to change it since she left. Ethan begins to act funny and when he is arrested for real, Lucie must come up with a plan to save his life.

Tell the Wind and Fire has more of a “modern” feel with current technology but with the added achievement of magic. Light and Dark magic was created many years before, not everyone has a propensity to magic. Light and Dark magic users are separated from one another but they dependent on each other. Since there are more Light magic users, the Dark have been quarantined into certain areas of cities because they are scared of their powers. Light magic poisons their users so they must be drained by Dark magic.

We need them. That is the truth everybody knows and nobody speaks. That’s why we resent them and fear them and tell stories describing how they are evil, how they deserve all they get and we deserve all that we have.

People always hate those they rely on.

***

When the power of Light and Dark was discovered, the world was transformed. There was no going back: the shine and shadow of magic swallowed the old world up.

That was when the world was torn between those who practice Light magic, born of sun and moon and stones, and those who practice Dark magic, which comes from life instead of light. Dark magic uses blood, and the dead.

No wonder the people who could do no magic were scared of Dark magicians, and not of Light. Besides, there were always more of the Light magicians—ten times more. We were always stronger, and we were told that meant we were better.

What I liked about Lucie was that she really was unremarkable. She became famous, a national symbol, even though she barely had powers of her own. She wasn’t super powerful, she didn’t have special powers that came out of nowhere. The power lay in the symbol that she became for a rebellion. It was helped by her good looks and why she became the Golden Thread in the Dark.

My father told the truth and was punished. I told a lie and was richly rewarded.

Overall, this novel has a dark, ominous feel. A lot of bad, unjustifiable things happen. If you have any idea of how A Tale of Two Cities ends then you have an idea how this one will go. My only complaint was the ending was too quick. It has an open ending and I just don’t have any faith that the story gets any happier from there.

I didn't connect with this book and didn't finish it. I won't leave a review anywhere

I started this book two times, both times I couldn’t get past the first few chapters. There was so much information dumping that I just couldn’t get myself through it. It was so boring I fell asleep every time I tried to read it. This last time, I made it all the way to 46% and I just couldn’t take any more…

I usually try to stick with a book if I like at least one character, and in this book I didn’t like any. First of all, the main character Lucy is so one dimensional, she’s extremely boring, selfish, dumb and not loyal at all. She’s extremely slow when it comes to decision making and understanding whats happening in the story.

The love triangle really made me mad. Lucie basically has to chose between her current boyfriend Ethan, whom she’s extremely obsessed with in the beginning, or his mysterious doppleganger Carwyn. The thing I hated the most was that Lucie basically cheated on Ethan with Carwyn and didn’t really care that much about it, she never put a stop to it or anything. I just couldn’t take any more.

While I think that the characters and plot of the story are extremely boring, I know a lot of people gave this book really great reviews, so if this does sound like your kind of read I’d still say give it a try, but maybe don’t spend your money on a copy unless you know you’re going to love it for certain.

Great read. A world of magic and mayhem, Dark and light, love and regret.

I really enjoyed seeing how Sarah Rees Brennan took a lot of the premise of A Tale of Two Cities, but put a modern-day fantasy spin on it. At times I thought it was a little too similar to the original story (having Lucie Manette's name be the same, for example) but I still thought there was enough difference in the story that I didn't know what was going to happen next. I also liked how the book uses the familiar geography of Manhattan and Brooklyn to create this fantasy world. It made the whole thing easier to picture, yet surreal at the same time. I would definitely recommend this to someone looking for a new YA fantasy novel to sink their teeth into.