Ignite: The Phoenix Flame Book Review

Mara, a young phoenix, is dangerous. Her fire is uncontrollable, bursting out at the worst moments, burning and destroying everything in her path. Her father, Darkholm, is the only one who can keep it in check. The only one able to keep her safe from the burning flame inside of her. Mara is supposed to protect her flock, but when they vanish, she goes on a desperate quest to find them, and in the process, she discovers dark truths about her people…and her father.

Let me begin by saying that Swanson is very good at world building. In both the Heirs of Neverland series and this, she created worlds that were fascinating. 

I enjoyed many of the characters. I wasn’t particularly fond of Mara herself, for reasons that I will address below. But I loved Eli (and Jude is adorable). Eli is such a sweet, strong man. So wracked with guilt, but so willing to give all of himself and to stay with Mara when she was the most broken. He is very endearing, despite being without flaw.

I loved Hannah. Her softness and warmth were a gleam of sunlight in a dying world. Haven was very interesting, and almost a mirror of Hannah – or her of him.

Now for the things that I found problematic…I’ll preface this by saying that I’m no longer the target audience for this book. I mainly read classics, so I don’t necessarily enjoy modern books that are built completely around emotions. Take my review with that grain of salt, lol.

I really struggled to connect with Mara, especially in the beginning. Another reviewer said that Mara was almost completely made of her trauma. I agree. For most of the book, she had no personality beyond her pain.

I appreciate that Swanson tackled hard topics like abuse, trauma, manipulation, and lies. But Mara was nothing but explosions, fire, and pain for so much of the book. I liked how Swanson delt with that topic in Dust – how Claire learned to control the dust that was a gift but caused destruction. But in Ignite, it is just a lot of repetition.

Mara is fine.
Something reminds Mara of her trauma – a word, a breath, a sound, a smell.
Mara starts to burn.
Mara causes destruction.

This pattern repeated over and over and over again. The story was ¾ Mara exploding and burning, and ¼ other things happening.

While I’m on the subject of repetition…the number of times that Jude’s silver studs glint in the sunlight. 😨 My goodness. It’s a little thing, but do we really need to hear about it every time he’s in a chapter? I wish Swanson had been a bit more creative in that area, instead of reusing the same thing so many times. Similarly, we have the scars on Mara’s back. We get it. Her wings have been cut. She’s hurt. She’s wounded. We can remember that without being reminded every three pages.

The story was quite slow in the beginning. I enjoyed getting to know the world and seeing the peril of the flock, but it took a while for the action to really begin. It was mostly internal dialogue – doubts and questions and fears.

Mara only begins to heal when she blocks out the voices that have been controlling her all her life. She only heals when she begins to trust herself. How can she trust herself when she has never been taught what is right and wrong? When she has lived in a twisted, manipulated world? How does she know the truth? I get that Eli was there to walk with her and guide her, but she had only known him for a short time. Could his influence really undo what she had been taught for hundreds of years?

I fully support getting out of abusive and manipulative situations. No one should have their every thought controlled, their every movement criticized. The problem I have with this book is that it promotes the idea that we can heal ourselves. That when we block out the negative voices in our lives, when we dig into our hearts and find our true selves, we will be whole. We will be who we are meant to be.

This is a very modern view and goes against what the Bible teaches. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”

In and of ourselves, we are nothing. Our own hearts are full of darkness. It is only when we look outward and upward that we find true healing. Nobody is ever truly happy when they obsess about themselves all of the time.

This isn’t an explicitly Christian book, but I have always had respect for the author and her Christian values. This book means so much to so many broken, bleeding, raw people, and I wish that Swanson had pointed the way to true healing – not inside, but towards our Savior, the true light of the world.

There were some other little things I was bothered by. The whole situation with her father was rather cliché and you could see it from the beginning, but I can’t say much without spoilers.

I did love how Swanson tackled the question of truth. In the world today, we are bombarded with so many different people telling us that this or that is the truth. It is so hard to know who to believe. Swanson did an excellent job exploring that. How often I’ve felt Mara’s confusion!

In conclusion, there were things I liked about this book, but I wish that the core of the story had pointed to true hope instead of to self.

~ Hattush