Seen at Bookish Antics! 
 Trial By Fire is one of those books that has an amazing premise, but I really wasn't a fan of the way Angelini wrote it. A majority of Trial By Fire is filled with info-dumping, telling and poor writing which made TbF a struggle for me to get through and I constantly had to push myself to read more. The plot and characters were also weakly constructed and I wish I had abandoned this book early on because TbF's weaknesses greatly outnumbered its strengths. 
 Lily Proctor is angry at her sort-of boyfriend after he cheats on her and she is whisked to a parallel universe of Salem. This isn't the Salem that she grew up in and this is a magical world ruled by Lilian (an alternate, doppelganger-esque Lily) who rules with an iron fist. Soon, Lily is taken under the wings of a group of rebels who want her to overthrow Lilian and restore peace to New Salem. 
 Right off the bat I knew I wouldn't like Lily because she immediately decides to risk her health and well-being over a guy. He clearly wasn't worth endangering her life over and I expected a character like Lily who is supposed to be extremely intelligent to realize that. I can understand if this happened once, but Lily decides to put Rowen (her love interest) before herself repeatedly. Lily makes countless foolish and rash decisions throughout the novel and I just couldn't root for her character at all. 
 The romance in Trial By Fire was extremely disappointing and read like 'insta-love' to me. Even though Rowen wants to kill Lily initially that doesn't stop her from falling madly in love with a guy she's just met. I never liked Rowen because it was obvious that he wasn't telling Lily everything and that he was trying to be secretive. Their relationship was never developed and it moved along at a lightning-like speed; Lily and Rowen's relationship felt very superficial and I just didn't enjoy their romance at all. 
 I didn't expect Angelini's writing to be so problematic considering so many readers have fallen in love with her Starcrossed Trilogy. I hate to say this, but Angelini doesn't know how to use commas and it felt like she was randomly throwing in commas in certain spots just for the heck of it. Her comma usage in many sections of the novel disrupted the flow and the cohesiveness of TbF. Angelini also kept on telling readers information, instead of actually showing readers what was going on; a little bit of telling is fine, but when the majority of the novel is telling it becomes a problem. 
 I loved the idea of a matriarchal society run by witches, but I couldn't handle how Angelini included so much info-dumping. Instead of easing readers into this magical world, she immediately thrusts them into the world and throws clumps of information at readers constantly. I definitely think Angelini had some clever ideas for the magical system in TbF, but I couldn't become immersed in this world. The explanations for much of the terms that Angelini uses weren't sufficiently explained and I felt like the differences between a crucible and other types of witches were weakly described. The way Angelini establishes the idea of parallel universes in this novel is shaky and a bit convoluted; the whole matter with spiritwalking was never cleared up and always remained a mystery to the reader. 
 I kept waiting for Angelini to integrate the Salem Witch Trials into the plot, but this never occurred. I expected that TbF would involve the witch trials considering it takes place in Salem and that Lily's last name is Proctor (John Proctor was one of those accused of being a witch in Salem and is one of the main characters of The Crucible). There a few loose connections to the Trial, but Angelini never substantially links TbF to the infamous trial. It would've been perfect if Lily's situation had paralleled the trials in some way and would've added another intriguing factor to the plot. 
 Trial By Fire was an extremely slow-paced novel where not much seems to happen for the majority of the novel. I zoned out several times while reading this novel and if I had skipped to the ending right after reading the opening chapters, I wouldn't have missed much. The plot, characters, and writing didn't sit well with me and didn't allow me to become addicted to this novel. I doubt I'll be picking up the sequel and I have a feeling that this series just isn't for me, which is really disheartening. If Trial By Fire is anything like the Starcrossed Trilogy, I'll probably skip that series too because I don't think I'll enjoy it!