Flame in the Mist

I've waited to write this review to give myself time to digest the story and really decided what my thoughts were. Hopefully I'm able to accurately portray them now. Going into this book I had a whole lot of expectations. The two most prominent were the writing style and the retelling aspect. Renee Ahdieh has a unique writing style that was apparent in [b:The Wrath & the Dawn 18798983 The Wrath & the Dawn (The Wrath & the Dawn, #1) Renee Ahdieh https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1417956963s/18798983.jpg 26724902]. If you remember, I had a slight problem with what I would call her obsession with describing eyes of the characters. Now this book did not have the problem for me (now it is very possible it was still there, I just did not notice it with this book). As for the retelling, this was touted as a Mulan retelling. Now Mulan is my favorite Disney movie, both now and growing up, and I did not want to be disappointed with this book. Spoiler: I was not. As for the actual book it was incredibly enjoyable and I loved the pace and how the story progressed. I never felt like we were spending too much time going through backstory or world building. I loved watching Mariko's views on her family, the empire, and the Black Clan change and evolve and she learned more and became more independent. We got to see her grow as a person both physically as well as growing in her understanding of why people do some of the things they do and the motivation behind every person's actions and choices. For me the strength of this book was its characters. I loved Mariko and her band of “friends”. They each had a vital part to play in her journey through the forest as well as her personal journey learning who she truly is. The banter between Mariko, Okami, and Ranmaru was spot on and I loved how they relationships all came to fruition and we learned why past decisions had been made.That being said, this book left so many unanswered questions, is struggle to see how this can all be answered in only one more book. But I'm sure Renee has something up her sleeve. I cannot wait to see what happens with Mariko and the Black Clan going forward and how her family reacts to the decisions she made in this book.