Book Review: The Burning Shadow (Origin #2) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Synopsis:

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.

JLA is really good at what she does. She’s got that bad boy loves good girl supernatural stuff snark snark formula down. Most of her books follow this pattern. Does that make us love her any less? Nope.

One of the things I can always count on for a JLA book is how downright readable they are. They move quickly, she gives you what you want, she rarely kills people you really love, and her heroes/heroines are otherworldly beautiful with SKILLZ.

I think it might be extremely possible, however, that out of all of her boys, Luc is my favorite. LUC. UGH. The thing I love about Luc is that he is this delightful mixture of super powered, absolutely insane, but wholly good. That’s really an unusual mix. Usually you’ve got super powered and good, or super powered and insane. Rarely do you have insane and good and super powered. I love that he is so far beyond everyone else that we don’t even really understand, and when he has to show us, he does it like a crazy serial killer. And then he does something that reminds us that he is so completely good.

I will say I got a little tired of Evie. Like, she doesn’t do a whole lot, especially in the beginning. Luc is super interesting, and she got super interesting by the end, but it was sort of like, oh no, we have another case of Mary Sue over here until we got her development. But seeing as this series might go on for a while, I’m not surprised it took a second to find out more about her. And it’s good, you guys. I really like where her character is heading. I think we’re going to have some SERIOUS relationship conflict between her and Luc in the future because of it.

Also, their relationship was just…adorable.

I love the group of secondary characters JLA has assembled here. They’re always very different and diverse and interesting. And can we all get a massive squeal for all the Lux cameos?? Can’t wait to see more of our fave alien triplets and their respective SO’s.

Anyway. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but as always with JLA, it’s a fun ride.