Phoenix by Ellie Simms

Phoenix by Ellie Simms is a book about a young girl who recently graduated from high school called Briana. Against her parent's wishes, Briana travels to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil for a gap year where she quickly finds a job she enjoys as a teacher teaching rich children to speak English. It is then soon after she lands this new job she gets kidnapped and taken to a place of horrors where she will be brutally tortured in unbelievable ways which are shocking, sickening and saddening. There is a sub-plot of her parents looking for their daughter through the authorities but they are told she is killed in a car accident.

This is a good book but a very upsetting book and highlights a variety of themes and morals. It shows how everyone should be careful who they go out with and what they do, it shows how the authorities are not always as good as they should be, it shows how the police sometimes contribute to miscarriages of justice, it shows that you should not trust anyone and most importantly it teaches men how not to treat any woman and how not to treat friends. Themes of this book include Freedom, honesty, loyalty, trust and betrayal to name just a few of the themes.

I like this book as it was very well thought out and written and was very creative. Simms was great when it came to hooks and cliffhangers and the book was very gripping; so gripping that it kept me up at night reading it. I also like the lessons that Simms tries to teach and how she does it in such an interesting way.

There are quite a few things I dislike about this book but it is not entirely the author's fault as these things add to the story to some extent. I really did not like it how the characters easily gave up at times and did not do all they could in different situations. I hated the authorities who lied and her parents who were so easily tricked and did not think of things which may help them find their daughter. I dislike how Briana changes throughout the story and particularly at the end, I hated some of the horrible rape scenes and the thing I hated the most is how in my opinion the story did not end with a happy ending which is deeply saddening.

Despite the things I dislike with this book, I would definitely read any other books of this series as I enjoyed the tale and the creativeness as well as the life lessons. The author has been very creative and has mastered the skill of making the book gripping which is great. I have to rate this book 3 stars meaning this is a good book which I enjoyed and would read again and would recommend to many people.