A review by kbusemeyer
Fire by Kristin Cashore

adventurous emotional sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book is longer and more evolved in its language than Graceling was. I do miss the other characters, but it was nice watching Brigand and Fire’s characters and relationship develop.

The concept of Fire being a “monster” and that her beauty was just so irresistible is really hard to imagine. The mind part I get, but I think it was a little annoying to read about
Nash being so in love with her he tries to SA her
. Her relationship with Archer was also very confusing although his death was honestly so tragic especially at the time of Clara and Mila having his baby. The Jod being his dad part did make a ton of sense but I definitely did not put it together as fast as Archer had, I found out when Fire realized.

Seeing Leck was interesting, the way of getting between worlds always confused me like basically “fall down mountain” and somehow come out the other side of the tunnel. I guess he settled back into the Graceling world after Fire’s horse stabbed him in the eye and then 20+ years later is when Katsa and co encountered him.

I wanted to like this book more, I do think it was better writing than Graceling, but it was just slow and I found the characters less endearing just due to the constant “she’s pretty, I’m in love” which I get is her power. I did like seeing her character develop and the
reveal that she killed Canstrel by making him commit suicide and her coming to terms with loving someone but not agreeing with what he did.
I feel like sometime there were just unnecessary twists and turns and reveals
(surprise Brigand is actually Brocker’s son, your grandmother is actually alive) - nice to have, I guess but didn’t add anything besides that genetics were really strong in peoples ability I guess.
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