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A review by bookph1le
Fire by Kristin Cashore
3.0
I didn't like this book nearly as much as Graceling. I thought Fire was rather whiney and she grated on my nerves. More complete review to come.
Full review:
Ah, Fire. After having read and strongly loved Graceling, it was disappointing to read Fire. I didn't mind that it picked up with new characters but still wove itself into the fabric of the story created by Graceling. This would have worked just fine for me if I hadn't found Fire herself so unlikable. Spoilers to follow.
Logically, it seems kind of strange for me to dislike Fire so much when, in some ways, it seems like she should be a much more sympathetic character than Katsa, who I did like. However, no matter how prickly and infuriating Katsa could be at times, she was always capable. Fire, on the other hand, drove me nuts with her passivity. While I understood her struggle and it made sense to me, I hated the way she dealt with it. She came across as angsty, needy, and whiny, and it really set my teeth on edge. While I didn't mind the "Woe is me, I'm so beautiful" aspect of it all that much--I could see how that beauty would be a burden--I did get tired of her feeling constantly sorry for herself. Where Katsa was an active player in her life, Fire just seemed to sit around and wait for someone to save her from herself.
I also could not stand Archer, who bears no comparison at all to Po. It's interesting to me that in a series with such a strong feminist subtext, Archer is presented as a character who is ostensibly meant to be sympathetic. He uses and discards women with abandon, and Fire doesn't ever really take him to task for it, other than yelling at him about it far into the book. It made me especially angry when he then turned around and blamed her for his profligacy. No, Archer, it is not Fire's fault that you can't manage to control your own animal urges. This is maybe where I will quibble with the tone of the books. Almost every male character in these books--particularly in Fire--is entirely subject to his baser instincts. That does feel unfair to me. It's as if every last man in the kingdoms is a rapist just waiting to happen, and I don't think that's an acceptable way to portray male characters. Where Graceling kind of flirts with this characterization, Fire crosses into territory that did not sit right with me. Feminism should be about gender equality, which means neither men nor women should be looked at in stereotypical ways.
The story in this book just didn't resonate with me as much either. Both Katsa and Fire possess abilities that can be used in really terrible ways, and both Katsa and Fire use their ability in terrible ways. While both of them agonize over this, I liked Katsa more as a character because she accepted her potential for doing terrible things and then worked hard to ensure that she didn't do them. Fire seemed more prone to trying to run away from her own abilities and then endlessly splitting hairs over them once she finally decided she couldn't deny what she was.
This book had a different attitude toward marriage and child bearing than Graceling did. Fire didn't seem as dead set against marriage as Katsa did, and her attitude about children was different. While it's true that she doesn't want to have them either, her reasoning differed from Katsa, and it was one area where I agreed with Fire. It made sense to me that she worried about the potential for a child of hers to do terrible things and that this made her decide that having children was something she shouldn't do. While I do think that Cashore is too hard on marriage at times, I think that the themes about child bearing and child rearing make sense in these books. Fire loves children and desperately wants them, but has good reason for thinking she has no business having them. Katsa doesn't want children and acts responsibly by taking care to ensure she won't have one. I think this is an important issue for women and men to think about. Social norms dictate that everyone is supposed to get married and have kids, but the decision to have kids is an extremely personal one that depends heavily on how people feel about children, what their financial situation is, etc. I like that, in these books, the main characters think seriously about what it would mean for them to have children and then act accordingly. I don't see this as anti-child, I see it as a message about carefully considering what it means to bring a child into the world.
While I liked Brigan, I didn't care for the relationship in this story all that much. I get why Brigan was initially mistrustful of Fire, but I didn't feel it was ever acceptable. The idea that the children are somehow responsible for the actions of their parents is a strong theme in this book, and I simply didn't agree with it. I can see how the terrible legacy left behind by their parents would make things difficult for Fire, Brigan, and company, but it didn't make sense to me that they all somehow took it upon their own shoulders as if they were someone responsible for it. Yes, their past experiences should absolutely influence their future behavior, but rather than the characters sighing and despairing about how terrible it was that their fathers had been so awful, I'd have liked to see the characters more focused on how they could try to make something good out of the chaos their fathers had wrought.
Still, despite the book's shortcomings, I thought it did pick up in the later parts of the book, and I did like the way it portrayed war, the futility and sense of waste the characters had about the loss of life. I think it looked at war realistically rather than portraying it in heroic terms that minimize war's cost. The political intrigue was interesting to me as well, as was Fire's involvement of trying to untangle the threads of the many plots and motivations of the other characters. I think I'd have liked this book more had the first part been much shorter and had it concentrated more on Fire's role in the palace intrigues.
Even though I wasn't all that thrilled with this book, I thought it was well written and thoughtful. I just would have liked to see less of endless monster attacks and more of Fire being an active player in her own life. There's no denying that this book was a disappointment after how strongly I felt about Graceling, but I still want to read Bitterblue, so this book didn't entirely destroy my enjoyment of the series.
Full review:
Ah, Fire. After having read and strongly loved Graceling, it was disappointing to read Fire. I didn't mind that it picked up with new characters but still wove itself into the fabric of the story created by Graceling. This would have worked just fine for me if I hadn't found Fire herself so unlikable. Spoilers to follow.
Logically, it seems kind of strange for me to dislike Fire so much when, in some ways, it seems like she should be a much more sympathetic character than Katsa, who I did like. However, no matter how prickly and infuriating Katsa could be at times, she was always capable. Fire, on the other hand, drove me nuts with her passivity. While I understood her struggle and it made sense to me, I hated the way she dealt with it. She came across as angsty, needy, and whiny, and it really set my teeth on edge. While I didn't mind the "Woe is me, I'm so beautiful" aspect of it all that much--I could see how that beauty would be a burden--I did get tired of her feeling constantly sorry for herself. Where Katsa was an active player in her life, Fire just seemed to sit around and wait for someone to save her from herself.
I also could not stand Archer, who bears no comparison at all to Po. It's interesting to me that in a series with such a strong feminist subtext, Archer is presented as a character who is ostensibly meant to be sympathetic. He uses and discards women with abandon, and Fire doesn't ever really take him to task for it, other than yelling at him about it far into the book. It made me especially angry when he then turned around and blamed her for his profligacy. No, Archer, it is not Fire's fault that you can't manage to control your own animal urges. This is maybe where I will quibble with the tone of the books. Almost every male character in these books--particularly in Fire--is entirely subject to his baser instincts. That does feel unfair to me. It's as if every last man in the kingdoms is a rapist just waiting to happen, and I don't think that's an acceptable way to portray male characters. Where Graceling kind of flirts with this characterization, Fire crosses into territory that did not sit right with me. Feminism should be about gender equality, which means neither men nor women should be looked at in stereotypical ways.
The story in this book just didn't resonate with me as much either. Both Katsa and Fire possess abilities that can be used in really terrible ways, and both Katsa and Fire use their ability in terrible ways. While both of them agonize over this, I liked Katsa more as a character because she accepted her potential for doing terrible things and then worked hard to ensure that she didn't do them. Fire seemed more prone to trying to run away from her own abilities and then endlessly splitting hairs over them once she finally decided she couldn't deny what she was.
This book had a different attitude toward marriage and child bearing than Graceling did. Fire didn't seem as dead set against marriage as Katsa did, and her attitude about children was different. While it's true that she doesn't want to have them either, her reasoning differed from Katsa, and it was one area where I agreed with Fire. It made sense to me that she worried about the potential for a child of hers to do terrible things and that this made her decide that having children was something she shouldn't do. While I do think that Cashore is too hard on marriage at times, I think that the themes about child bearing and child rearing make sense in these books. Fire loves children and desperately wants them, but has good reason for thinking she has no business having them. Katsa doesn't want children and acts responsibly by taking care to ensure she won't have one. I think this is an important issue for women and men to think about. Social norms dictate that everyone is supposed to get married and have kids, but the decision to have kids is an extremely personal one that depends heavily on how people feel about children, what their financial situation is, etc. I like that, in these books, the main characters think seriously about what it would mean for them to have children and then act accordingly. I don't see this as anti-child, I see it as a message about carefully considering what it means to bring a child into the world.
While I liked Brigan, I didn't care for the relationship in this story all that much. I get why Brigan was initially mistrustful of Fire, but I didn't feel it was ever acceptable. The idea that the children are somehow responsible for the actions of their parents is a strong theme in this book, and I simply didn't agree with it. I can see how the terrible legacy left behind by their parents would make things difficult for Fire, Brigan, and company, but it didn't make sense to me that they all somehow took it upon their own shoulders as if they were someone responsible for it. Yes, their past experiences should absolutely influence their future behavior, but rather than the characters sighing and despairing about how terrible it was that their fathers had been so awful, I'd have liked to see the characters more focused on how they could try to make something good out of the chaos their fathers had wrought.
Still, despite the book's shortcomings, I thought it did pick up in the later parts of the book, and I did like the way it portrayed war, the futility and sense of waste the characters had about the loss of life. I think it looked at war realistically rather than portraying it in heroic terms that minimize war's cost. The political intrigue was interesting to me as well, as was Fire's involvement of trying to untangle the threads of the many plots and motivations of the other characters. I think I'd have liked this book more had the first part been much shorter and had it concentrated more on Fire's role in the palace intrigues.
Even though I wasn't all that thrilled with this book, I thought it was well written and thoughtful. I just would have liked to see less of endless monster attacks and more of Fire being an active player in her own life. There's no denying that this book was a disappointment after how strongly I felt about Graceling, but I still want to read Bitterblue, so this book didn't entirely destroy my enjoyment of the series.