The Lost Continent

Ah, I love this book.

After reading the final and worst book of the series, Flames of Hope, I hoped (haha, pun) that re-reading this one would ease my disappointment and distress. Were the books always this bad? Am I just now realizing it because I'm older?

And The Lost Continent did ease my distress! This book is actually way more awesome that I remember. Okay, 11-year-old Me liked this book—a lot—but present 16-year-old Me loves it. I didn't remember the energy of this book. This book has a spirit—a spirit of adventure, creativity, emotion, and suspense. And Blue is an extremely well-thought-out character. Even if his tendencies annoyed me, I could see where he was coming from.

And the whole story, pacing, worldbuilding, characters—are so good! Characters I had come to hate in later books, such as Luna, Sundew, and Swordtail, are actually really likeable in this one! And the pacing is...magnificent! Both times I read it, I finished this book in under two days. The pacing was fast enough to keep things moving, but it never skimmed over important, fun, epic things, nor did it ever seem rushed. And the whole thing just felt so cinematic! So many memorable, epic, cinematic scenes! I'm in love with this book, and it's creativity is contagious—all of a sudden, I want to write my butt off! If I had to pick one Wings of Fire book to adapt into a film, I would choose this one.

It is clear from the utter magnificence of this book that Sutherland had much bigger plans for the conclusion to this arc. I can tell she had fun writing this book, and she was genuinely thrilled to be writing a new arc on a new continent with new threats and characters and cultures and epicness-potential. Unfortunately, Flames of Hope sucked, but it could have been so much more if it had been written with the same energy as this book. Rereading this book made me sad for the arc's poor conclusion—it started out so strong and with lots of promise. I hope Tui considers doing a rewrite of books 13, 14, and 15 sometime in the future, when she has recovered from what I perceive to be ‘writer's burnout'. This masterpiece deserves a better ending