3.96k reviews for:

Fire

Kristin Cashore

4.06 AVERAGE

adventurous emotional medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous emotional funny lighthearted relaxing medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

Fantastic yet again, and more evenly-written than Graceling. I'm a little skeptical of the initial premise that the world works differently--children are born with different abilities--depending on geography. Fire's irresistability was very unsettling, in a good way; every teenage boy should read this before he gets the idea that simply finding a woman attractive is some sort of gift to her. Those who object to the sexual content in Graceling will find plenty more to complain about here, but again I think it's appropriate for a YA audience. Fire doubles-down something I already found disturbing in Graceling: an unexamined acceptance of divine-right monarchy and questionable actions carried out in its service. ("Well, rumour has it he's up to something" isn't much of a standard of evidence.) It's a frequent fantasy trope that I find surprising in Cashore's work, given how much thought goes into so many other aspects.
lighthearted tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Fire is completely different than Graceling was. Graceling was full of... well Gracelings, and in Fire we hardly see any at all.

The main character, Fire, is a monster (with amazing powers). I thought I wouldn't like her, at all, since at first she was stuck in self pity land all the time. As the story progressed, we could see why she thought that way and how she coped with it. Fire was extremely likable, although she sounded older than she really was.

There were times where the story progressed a bit TOO slow for my tastes, but at least it wasn't a trait that made the book less likable.

The author found a way to blend together a lot of different elements, and oddly they didn't weigh the story down. This was as equally captivating as Graceling had been.

The romance in this book was... swoony . There's no other way to express it. It was easily believable and just as cute. I LOVED the love interest.

I also enjoyed the way that the book wasn't ONLY focused on the love story.

All the secondary characters played a huge part, which is always nice to see as well.

Overall, this book was a great read, especially if you enjoyed Graceling. There's no need to read the first book to read this one, since it's only a companion novel.

4 to 4.5 stars.

I loved the development of Fire/Brigan. Interesting- the perception of beauty as a monster because of what it brings out in people.

I read this book three times now but I still don't like it. I thought I would give it another shot a few years later but no. I feel like the ingredients are there but somehow I still don't like it.

“It's hard to wake from a nightmare when the nightmare is real.”


I loved this a lot. Usually prequels aren't my thing but this installment was very different and unique. I liked the characters and the relationships in this era and i hope to see them mentioned in the next books.
adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Follow ups of a first book are hard, especially if it is a companion. Fire tells the story of, well, Fire, a young woman in Dells, set in the same world as the Seven Kingdoms, but separate, so Dellian people don't know about the kingdoms and vice versa. She controls minds, but the lack of the term "Graceling", dubs her a monster by everyone. But gorgeous, she is adored by men falling to her feet and scorned and bullied by those afraid of her. The prince Brigan takes her to the capital city to help unearth a plot against the king.
This book fell very flat for me. Not only very boring, with a somewhat hard to relate to a main character (it's where you feel sympathy for her powers, yet hate her for her looks), and a crappy best friend, set in a rather dull court, and you have, Fire. It suffers from the same flaw in Graceling, slow pace, yet, being more political and romancey, with less action than Graceling, and less intrigue, the slow pace bogs the book down. Not only that, but what I always enjoyed about Graceling was its characters, and, the ones in this book weren't very good. You'd think that in 400 something pages, you'd get to know some people, but yet, you don't. A bunch of the men are falling over themselves to marry Fire, she's, sort of, crushing on her best friend, who is a total jerk (I don't understand why Fire accepts her best friend's habit of bedding every woman in the court), and every other character we meet is sort of dull and dry. None of them have the same flare that Katsa and Po did. And the villain is pretty much recycled, for the most part, from the first book. He's there for like five seconds, which I liked, pretty much one of the best parts of the book.
In conclusion, it was a very disappointing read, after the good, but flawed, Graceling, where everything I didn't like about Graceling (pacing) and everything I did like (characters) was scrambled and thrown into this mess of a book.