The Burning Shadow by Jennifer L. Armentrout (Review)

Title: The Burning Shadow
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Type: Fiction
Genre: YA, Science Fiction
Publisher: Tor Teen (Macmillan Publishers)
Date published: October 8, 2019

A physical copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Note: This book is part of a spinoff series from another series, and is also the sequel in its own series, so there may be spoilers for a previous books in the synopsis below.

When Evelyn Dasher crossed paths with Luc, she was thrown headfirst into the world of the Lux—only to discover that she was already far more involved in their world than she ever suspected.

Because the Luxen aren’t the only ones with a hidden past. There’s a gap in Evie’s memory, lost months of her life and a lingering sense that something happened, something she can’t remember and nobody is willing to tell her. She needs to find out the truth about who she is—and who she was. But every answer she finds only brings up more questions.

Her search for the truth brings her ever closer to Luc, the Origin at the center of it all. He’s powerful, arrogant, inhumanly beautiful, extremely dangerous…and possibly in love with her. But even as Evie falls for him, she can’t help but wonder if his attraction is to her, or to the memory of a girl who no longer exists.

And all the while, a new threat looms: reports of a flu-like, fatal virus that the government insists is being spread by Luxen. A horrifying illness that changes whoever it touches, spreading panic across a country already at its breaking point.

⤖ My Review ⬻

First and foremost, if you plan on reading Jennifer Armentrout’s Lux series and haven’t yet, that you read that series first as there are major spoilers for it in Armentrout’s Origin series (of which this book is the second book in). I’m not a fan of spoilers myself, so I always try to give others a heads up about them when I can! Also, if you haven’t read my review for the first book in the Origin series, The Darkest Star, you can do so here.

I made my way through the Lux series pretty quickly once I dove into the first book. I was hooked and almost instantly invested in the happiness and wellbeing of the main characters.

Now that I’ve read The Burning Shadow and am two books into the Origin series, which is a spinoff/continuation of the Lux series, I can say with certainty that I’m missing that a little bit with this other cast of characters. It could very well be that I just miss the characters from the Lux series, I don’t know, but I’m missing that connection a little bit, which by default makes me feel a little less invested in the story and character.

That aside, I will say that I was curious to see how the world changed after the end of the Lux series, and the Origin books definitely talk about that and the effects that the events from the Lux series have had on the world.

Also, as some of you who have been reading my blog for a while might know, I don’t usually do too well with the middle books in series. So, I wanted to point out that in this case, I actually enjoyed The Burning Shadow, the second book in the Origin series, better than the first! Also, despite my not feeling as close to these characters, I am also definitely curious to see where the story will take them, so I will be picking up the next book once it’s released!

⤖ About the Author ⬻

# 1 New York Times and # 1 International Bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout lives in Charles Town, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing. she spends her time reading, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, hanging out with her husband and her Jack Russell Loki. In early 2015, Jennifer was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a group of rare genetic disorders that involve a breakdown and death of cells in the retina, eventually resulting in loss of vision, among other complications. Due to this diagnosis, educating people on the varying degrees of blindness has become of passion of hers, right alongside writing, which she plans to do as long as she can.