Overall, I absolutely loved this book. Yes, the first book was already really good, but this is the one that make me really engaged in the series. It's not flawless, but I really connected well with this book.
First things first, the characters. I finally feel like all of our three protagonists all have become rounded. I liked Zyn and Sarala in book 1, however, I couldn't really get a clear image of Ren, what she was like and all that. She did have a basic personality, but she wasn't that developed. Here, however, she feels much more like a character worthy of being one of our main three. Zyn also went through some (emotionally devastating) character development, and Sarala in this book finally finds the courage to realize who her real family is and to stand up against her past abuser.
But not only our main three were great, others were as well. I loved C3 and Mint in this, and I like how they interacted with our main three. Everyone is (understandably) a bit skeptic towards C3 at first, but he really does develop well in this book. And poor Mint with their/his/her anxiety issues, I related a lot to that.
Of course the other cast was great as well, but the main focus really was on these five here, and Ak-tu, of course. If I do have a criticism for the characters, it's that we still don't really have a good motivation for the villains yet. Why exactly does Chaocat want to cause all this chaos at the magic school? Why is Mimiteh the way she is? What happened between Chaocat and Ak-tu? And of course Wave being the mole was a bit too obvious to me when it was supposed to be a mystery. C3 is (kinda) played as a red herring at times in order to conceal Wave's connection to Chaocat, but I never really bought it.
The plot was once more good and there was a nice anticipation to the mystery of what was happening to the vanishing people and who was sabotaging the school, which was pretty evenly spread out throughout the story before coming to a close in a pretty intense climax. I feel like the Rainbow Reflections books so far still hinge a little bit too much on characters and a tiny bit too little on the plot, but there's at least much more buildup to the mystery here than in the first book. Don't get me wrong, I like these characters and reading about what they're up to, but I also want a tiny bit more storyline to keep the reader engaged.
However, these things are pretty much the only complaints I have about the book. Ryder's character writing itself is immaculate and I just really want to see where this journey takes us next, and of course to learn more about the villains because there is definitely something that happened between Chaocat and Ak-tu that the latter isn't telling anyone about.
And of course there's the devastating ending where Zyn turns on their family (or rather, in their perspective, they on them). The ending legit broke me for a day because they have always been this incredibly close with her father and sister. The fact that they weren't biologically related never for a moment mattered to them, but now this revelation in the end just shattered (at least from Zyn's perspective) any bond they had. It's just so heartbreaking. Let's just hope things turn out better for poor Zyn and their family in book three.
Put Out the Fire is already a massive improvement over the first (which was already good), and I think it's definitely my favorite Phoenix book to this day!
Rating: 5/5
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