3.5/5 Stars 
 Echo is a human girl who was raised by the Avicen, a race of magical bird-people who have feathers instead of hair. The Drakharin (dragon-people) and Avicen have been at war for centuries, and Echo's job is to find the mysterious Firebird that will help end the war once and for all. 
 The story behind this book is very original. It takes skill to write about a species (or two) that come from your own imagination. I found it very interesting that the Firebird is literally a combination of the two races at war with each other- a fire-breathing dragon-bird (view spoiler)[(if you read the book you know that isn't really what it is, but the name happens to be symbolic) (hide spoiler)]. Anyone else notice that? 
 The first few hundred pages or so did not impress me, however. It was clear that a lot of things happened just for the sake of drama or to move the plot forward. And a lot of stuff just didn't make much sense at all. For example, Echo just happened to stumble upon the music box containing the first map? Also, why did Tanith wait this long to take over the throne if she had the power and influence to have done it long ago? You get the picture. 
 I felt like the relationship with Echo and Caius progressed naturally, which I appreciated, but the love-triangle was totally useless. Rowan would have been better off just being Echo's friend- or non-existent- than as a token-character obviously there for the purpose of creating drama. 
 I was pretty disappointed in the world-building. Grey missed one of the keystone components of fantasy writing, and that is creating an engaging world with it's own culture and peppered with unique quirks and curiosities. There was so much potential for that, but it wasn't there. The Avicen seemed sort of like regular human beings doing regular human stuff in a regular human world, except that they had feathers. 
 Overall, I have pretty neutral feelings on this book. There were some upsides and some downsides, but nothing really stood out.