Review : Destiny's Fire by Trisha Wolfe

Summary (from Goodreads)

It’s the year 2040, and sixteen-year-old Dez Harkly is one of the last of her kind—part of a nearly extinct race of shape-shifters descended from guardians to the Egyptian pharaohs. Her home and her secret are threatened when the Council lowers the barrier, allowing the enemy race to enter the Shythe haven.

As the Narcolym airships approach, Dez and her friends rebel against their Council and secretly train for battle. Not only is Dez wary of war and her growing affection for her best friend Jace, but she fears the change her birthday will bring. When Dez’s newfound power rockets out of control, it’s a Narcolym who could change her fate... if she can trust him.

Dez’s guarded world crumbles when she discovers why the Narcos have really come to Haven Falls, and she's forced to choose between the race who raised her and the enemy she's feared her whole life.

Personal Thoughts

Ever since I started reading dystopian novels, I've loved the genre. The Hunger Games, Divergent, Shatter Me etc ... You name it. So, I was pretty excited to get to read Destiny's Fire. However, this has got to be my least favorite out of all the dystopian books that I've read.

Destiny's Fire tells the story of Dez in the year 2040, where shape-shifters are part of the human world. There are two different races in this world, the Narcolym and the Shyte, who are enemies. The story begins with Narcolyms deciding to live among the Shyte. Our main character, Dez is, in fact, half-Narcolym half-Shyte because of her parents background.
Now, Dez was ,initially, a quite fascinating character. She was energetic, fiery, courageous and kick-ass. She was the kind of main character who never bowed down and didn't let anything discourage her. However, as the story went by, I began to feel an extreme distaste for her. Her attitude bothered me so much that I ended up disliking her character in general. Because of the certain decisions that she made, I lost my respect for her as a kick-butt character.

This book has a love triangle, my nightmare in YA books. Dez has been friends with the triplets Jace, Lana and Nick since they were very little. As expected, Dez develops a little crush on Jace and vice-versa.
Jace was a likable character. He was honest, sweet and a little conflicted on the inside. Shy, he was initially unable to express his true feelings for Dez.
Then, we have Reese. He was from the enemy species. He was outspoken, blunt and a bit of a bad boy. He immediately started flirting with Dez upon meeting her.
Dez and Reese rushed into a relationship in the first few chapters of the book. I thought that they jumped into a relationship way too fast for my liking. They hardly got time to learn anything about each other. Also, I didn't like how she trusted Reese so immediately when at first she was wary of him because he came from the enemy species.
I also hated the fact that she kept vacillating between the two guys. According to me, she kept hurting both guys and she whined and complained too much about it.  The thing is that I felt zero chemistry between the main character and her love interests.
Overall, the romance was a failure and a bore to me.

The secondary characters were so under developed because the main focus of the book was the love triangle. I really don't like when authors do that. I like when secondary characters have a personality and these personalities and characteristics that contribute to the plot of the story. I like when the entire cast of a book actually forms a pivotal part of the book, but this wasn't the case with Destiny's Fire. As a reader, I got very little information about the secondary characters and this made me feel utterly frustrated.

The plot was highly original, in my opinion. I'm not going to deny that it had a LOT of potential. However, the story-line is drowned by the annoying love triangle. The world that the author has created is intriguing and actually very interesting. She could have done wonderful things with this book, but she didn't exploit her skills fully by concentrating on the plot of the story. Instead, she gave too much attention to the love triangle.

The world-building in this story is pretty awesome. The author did a great job at that! The entire history behind their world was mysterious and captivating.
Trisha Wolfe is a talented  author, but her focus on the love triangle ruined things for me.

Overall, I found this to be a major disappointment and sincerely hope that the sequel will move away from the frustrating love triangle.
If you, like me, dislike love triangles, then this is not the book for you.

Rating

Cover : 3/5
Plot : 1/5
Characters : 2/5

Writing : 3/5