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sincostami's reviews
156 reviews
Fire by Kristin Cashore
1.0
This book is called Fire, which is great, because that’s exactly where it belongs.
I have so many problems with this book, which is definitely not helped by the fact that it was so lauded for being progressive and empowering, and not afraid to deal with complex social issues, like women. This is insane to me, because I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that markets itself as ‘progressive’ while the author is trying, it seems, to take the most vague (perhaps even opposite) stance possible on the issues at hand. The issues, namely, being the societal struggles of women, pregnancy, periods, sex, etc. In theory, this is a great set of things to explore within a YA novel, and though I wasn’t expecting each one to be handled perfectly, I certainly wasn’t expecting there to be this undertone of blaming women, and generally forcing them into uncomfortable, non-plot-advancing situations the entire time for the sake of violence. Though, to be fair, every situation in this book could be seen as non-plot-advancing. There is no plot. There is just travel, and a pretty girl.
The main character is Incredibly Gorgeous, Breathtaking, Stunning, Unbelievably Beautiful. Just a reminder, in case the first fifty times it was mentioned weren’t enough for you. It does seem like every single page is there to make at least one mention of how pretty Fire is, which gets annoying very quickly when it amounts to nothing. There was definitely room here to explore topics like rape culture, pretty privilege, even just beauty standards and expectations for women. Which isn’t to say these things weren’t explored, just that they were explored poorly. There seems to be a focus in the marketing in specifying how her ‘beauty is a weapon’, which gives off this femme-fetale vibe that I thought we’d follow. Honestly, I was hopeful when I realised that’s not who the MC is, and we were instead going to have a strong female character who wasn’t a murderous seductress, or something. Unfortunately, Fire isn’t strong and feminine. She’s just whiny and insufferable, and complains about every single thing that happens to her, while also having no grip on her emotions or how to properly treat people. This would be fine if she had a real character arc. She does not. She has a character line. She makes no progress in bettering herself the entire novel.
You know those girls who want to show you the new song they wrote on ukulele? That’s Fire, except she has a fiddle instead of a ukulele.
There are also numerous situations where the MC just seems to be put in dangerous situations with men, to the point where the rape threats/ death threats/ every conceivable type of threat felt gratuitous and uncomfortable. What makes it worse is that she can literally control minds- she’s powerless by choice, and there seems to be a prevailing sense that this is because she sees using her power as ‘immoral’. Which, yes, maybe, except you’re in LIFE OR DEATH SITUATIONS, dealing with a w f u l people. Kill them! Do something! Agency!!!
There’s literally a scene where she’s questioning a criminal and receives a threat ‘so graphic’ we as readers don’t even get to hear it, and though she does mention it’s not fair for her to be treated this way, her next thought is that it’s partially her fault too, because if she weren’t so pretty, he wouldn’t be as violent?? That’s the opposite of a good message for young girls? It’s also only one instance in a very long (very, very, very unnecessarily long) novel, which gives this strange sense that women are to blame for a lot of the problems they experience. This might’ve been unconscious, since clearly it’s not the book’s intention, but it’s still present constantly and jarring to read.
To try and semi-speedrun some other problems with topics in this book:
Every discussion is surface level and either not explored enough, or contradicted entirely.
I’ve seen a lot of people criticise this book for anti-marriage ideals and/or casual sex and that’s absolutely not what I’m here to do. What I will say is that the dynamics between every single couple were terribly written and so unhealthy. Not a single one of these people knows how to deal with emotions.
I’ve also seen criticism about the fact that this book talks about periods and how people would rather not read about that/ how it makes the book uncomfortable (which honestly is strange behaviour from them but I digress). This is something I actually thought was great, and I was really excited to see a book where this is acknowledged to be part of the MC’s life. However, it’s just mentioned a LOT for absolutely NO REASON? If it happened once or twice it’d be fine, but god this girl probably needs to seek professional help at this point. It is EXCESSIVE. no wonder she’s so air-headed. Also it seems like an excuse for her to constantly be under super heavy guard, which is another thing that completely detracts from the ‘independent woman’ vibe we were going for. Again, she doesn’t NEED to be badass and violent to be strong, but these guards are ALWAYS around her and it feels like she has no agency whatsoever, especially for someone who is supposed to be really good at shooting things.
Let’s move on the the real problem for me (yayy). As mentioned, every dynamic here is really really strange. Everyone Fire is involved with is at least in their 20s while she’s 17 (see also how she, a 15-year-old, slept with an 18-year-old and proceeded to develop THE most unhealthy relationship ever, which just isn’t really addressed, ever) and this is the least offensive part. The worst of it is undoubtedly the 15-year-old peasant girl in Fire’s guard, who goes on to have a child with someone in their 20s, and is, at the end, set up with the literal king?? Who is, like, 30???? Age aside (though it’s a very hard thing to set aside) there’s also the incredibly skewed power dynamic that’s never mentioned at all, which is wonderful messaging once again.
Oh and there’s also all the semi-incest stuff, like Fire getting with the son of the man she calls her second father (twice!!), and her being called ‘little sister’ by the guy who spends half the novel needing to be physically separated from her because he can’t control himself. oh, and her dad literally saying he can’t control himself around her, which is brushed off and never spoken about again.
The thing with the pregnancy stuff in this book is that it seemed to happen all at once, very heavy-handedly? Perhaps that’s just a me problem though, since I initially just thought this was a political fantasy. It is, technically, though the politics are so boring they rival real-world ones, and the only fantasy was the one I had of stabbing my eyes out so I wouldn’t have to finish this book.
Not mentioning how unrealistic it is that half of the people at court have a child with the same guy (who is also just so so unlikable), there’s a lot of very peculiar pro-child ideals in here. Starting with the scene where Fire literally looks at herself and asks what the point of a woman is if she cannot have children (reminder that if this got published, you can too, follow your dreams!!), there seems to be a theme that every woman just NEEDS a child to be happy. Even people who didn’t want one before. Even if you’re a 15-year-old girl who is very visibly upset about being pregnant. It’s okay, because you’ll feel better once you give birth!! i love feminist novels.
Similarly, it’s pointed out multiple times that the city were in the most medically advanced place to ever exist in the history of everything everywhere (the worldbuilding in this book is very strong). Despite this, and contraceptives being widely available, everyone still ends up pregnant? And it’s just brushed off/ the men (or man, really, because again, realism) aren’t made to feel any responsibility for this whatsoever, all the while we read about girls getting vaguely blamed for not judging better. And then, in a book so focused on pregnancy, and, I cannot stress this enough, female empowerment, you’d think abortion would at least be present in some form. And, I suppose, it is. As an afterthought the author added, probably after she thought about counter arguments to this book and decided to be one step ahead of the haters. Seriously though, for the most advanced city, you’re telling me NO ONE thought to tell the 15-year-old girl that she didn’t have to have a child because NO ONE KNEW that abortion exists???? It felt like something slapped on to say ‘hey fellow kids, this exists!!’ but the author’s oddly obsessive tone on children and babies in this book does make me think she doesn’t really see it as a valid option. Which is very feminist and encouraging to young women.
Small side rant on how many illegitimate children there were, and how much cheating there was. Funny, also, how the one time a woman cheats, Fire decides to get all pissy with her, despite literally crying over her abusive, toxic friend/ex/something, whose only personality trait is sleeping around, about 3 pages prior. And also excusing every single man who cheated. Of which there are many. After a point, it did seem to reach soap opera levels of illegitimate children, so they weren’t really very good ‘plot twists’ after a while. Well. Many of them weren’t twists, so I suppose they just weren’t very good plot points. Not that there is much plot to point.
Anyways that’s everything that made me genuinely, passionately angry. Everything else is getting a short(?) summary because it made me feel more than bored, and I don’t care enough to remember it:
- The romance was BORING. I could slap two wet pieces of paper together and get more sparks. How am I meant to root for them when their one personality trait is horses? I don’t like horses! Give them something other than horses! Insomnia is not a personality trait! Give them interests! Hell, give them screen time!!
- This was all meant to be a backstory to the Graceling villain(?) which somehow made him even MORE one dimensional and evil for the sake of evil. I’m almost impressed
- Plot was not there. Why is the war like 20 pages long. That’s not a war. There’s not even any sacrifice, or hardship. It can hardly even be called a scuffle
- One of the characters is called Mydogg. This is getting mentioned as a reminder that just when you think names cannot get stupider, they will. This is also very impressive to me. Maybe I’ll up the rating
- I don’t understand monsters as a concept. They’re not monstrous. They just look like normal animals but garishly neon. They’re basically just shiny pokemon. Fire is just a shiny pokemon. where is the world building
- The MC is so annoying and whiny and omg. I feel like I could beat her in a fight so easily. This enrages me.
- why do we do nothing for 400 pages
Now, I don’t like spreading negativity (evidently) so here’s a some positives:
- I liked the twins, especially the one who was mean to her (he had a name but it’s not important and was probably stupid) because he was mean to her. Unfortunately they lost any semblance of personality at some point which is upsetting
- The prose did improve a lot from Graceling (thank god bc it was shockingly dull) and I actually quite liked it. I can’t tell for sure though because everything it was telling me was painful to my brain. But it did improve.
I have so many problems with this book, which is definitely not helped by the fact that it was so lauded for being progressive and empowering, and not afraid to deal with complex social issues, like women. This is insane to me, because I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that markets itself as ‘progressive’ while the author is trying, it seems, to take the most vague (perhaps even opposite) stance possible on the issues at hand. The issues, namely, being the societal struggles of women, pregnancy, periods, sex, etc. In theory, this is a great set of things to explore within a YA novel, and though I wasn’t expecting each one to be handled perfectly, I certainly wasn’t expecting there to be this undertone of blaming women, and generally forcing them into uncomfortable, non-plot-advancing situations the entire time for the sake of violence. Though, to be fair, every situation in this book could be seen as non-plot-advancing. There is no plot. There is just travel, and a pretty girl.
The main character is Incredibly Gorgeous, Breathtaking, Stunning, Unbelievably Beautiful. Just a reminder, in case the first fifty times it was mentioned weren’t enough for you. It does seem like every single page is there to make at least one mention of how pretty Fire is, which gets annoying very quickly when it amounts to nothing. There was definitely room here to explore topics like rape culture, pretty privilege, even just beauty standards and expectations for women. Which isn’t to say these things weren’t explored, just that they were explored poorly. There seems to be a focus in the marketing in specifying how her ‘beauty is a weapon’, which gives off this femme-fetale vibe that I thought we’d follow. Honestly, I was hopeful when I realised that’s not who the MC is, and we were instead going to have a strong female character who wasn’t a murderous seductress, or something. Unfortunately, Fire isn’t strong and feminine. She’s just whiny and insufferable, and complains about every single thing that happens to her, while also having no grip on her emotions or how to properly treat people. This would be fine if she had a real character arc. She does not. She has a character line. She makes no progress in bettering herself the entire novel.
You know those girls who want to show you the new song they wrote on ukulele? That’s Fire, except she has a fiddle instead of a ukulele.
There are also numerous situations where the MC just seems to be put in dangerous situations with men, to the point where the rape threats/ death threats/ every conceivable type of threat felt gratuitous and uncomfortable. What makes it worse is that she can literally control minds- she’s powerless by choice, and there seems to be a prevailing sense that this is because she sees using her power as ‘immoral’. Which, yes, maybe, except you’re in LIFE OR DEATH SITUATIONS, dealing with a w f u l people. Kill them! Do something! Agency!!!
There’s literally a scene where she’s questioning a criminal and receives a threat ‘so graphic’ we as readers don’t even get to hear it, and though she does mention it’s not fair for her to be treated this way, her next thought is that it’s partially her fault too, because if she weren’t so pretty, he wouldn’t be as violent?? That’s the opposite of a good message for young girls? It’s also only one instance in a very long (very, very, very unnecessarily long) novel, which gives this strange sense that women are to blame for a lot of the problems they experience. This might’ve been unconscious, since clearly it’s not the book’s intention, but it’s still present constantly and jarring to read.
To try and semi-speedrun some other problems with topics in this book:
Every discussion is surface level and either not explored enough, or contradicted entirely.
I’ve seen a lot of people criticise this book for anti-marriage ideals and/or casual sex and that’s absolutely not what I’m here to do. What I will say is that the dynamics between every single couple were terribly written and so unhealthy. Not a single one of these people knows how to deal with emotions.
I’ve also seen criticism about the fact that this book talks about periods and how people would rather not read about that/ how it makes the book uncomfortable (which honestly is strange behaviour from them but I digress). This is something I actually thought was great, and I was really excited to see a book where this is acknowledged to be part of the MC’s life. However, it’s just mentioned a LOT for absolutely NO REASON? If it happened once or twice it’d be fine, but god this girl probably needs to seek professional help at this point. It is EXCESSIVE. no wonder she’s so air-headed. Also it seems like an excuse for her to constantly be under super heavy guard, which is another thing that completely detracts from the ‘independent woman’ vibe we were going for. Again, she doesn’t NEED to be badass and violent to be strong, but these guards are ALWAYS around her and it feels like she has no agency whatsoever, especially for someone who is supposed to be really good at shooting things.
Let’s move on the the real problem for me (yayy). As mentioned, every dynamic here is really really strange. Everyone Fire is involved with is at least in their 20s while she’s 17 (see also how she, a 15-year-old, slept with an 18-year-old and proceeded to develop THE most unhealthy relationship ever, which just isn’t really addressed, ever) and this is the least offensive part. The worst of it is undoubtedly the 15-year-old peasant girl in Fire’s guard, who goes on to have a child with someone in their 20s, and is, at the end, set up with the literal king?? Who is, like, 30???? Age aside (though it’s a very hard thing to set aside) there’s also the incredibly skewed power dynamic that’s never mentioned at all, which is wonderful messaging once again.
Oh and there’s also all the semi-incest stuff, like Fire getting with the son of the man she calls her second father (twice!!), and her being called ‘little sister’ by the guy who spends half the novel needing to be physically separated from her because he can’t control himself. oh, and her dad literally saying he can’t control himself around her, which is brushed off and never spoken about again.
The thing with the pregnancy stuff in this book is that it seemed to happen all at once, very heavy-handedly? Perhaps that’s just a me problem though, since I initially just thought this was a political fantasy. It is, technically, though the politics are so boring they rival real-world ones, and the only fantasy was the one I had of stabbing my eyes out so I wouldn’t have to finish this book.
Not mentioning how unrealistic it is that half of the people at court have a child with the same guy (who is also just so so unlikable), there’s a lot of very peculiar pro-child ideals in here. Starting with the scene where Fire literally looks at herself and asks what the point of a woman is if she cannot have children (reminder that if this got published, you can too, follow your dreams!!), there seems to be a theme that every woman just NEEDS a child to be happy. Even people who didn’t want one before. Even if you’re a 15-year-old girl who is very visibly upset about being pregnant. It’s okay, because you’ll feel better once you give birth!! i love feminist novels.
Similarly, it’s pointed out multiple times that the city were in the most medically advanced place to ever exist in the history of everything everywhere (the worldbuilding in this book is very strong). Despite this, and contraceptives being widely available, everyone still ends up pregnant? And it’s just brushed off/ the men (or man, really, because again, realism) aren’t made to feel any responsibility for this whatsoever, all the while we read about girls getting vaguely blamed for not judging better. And then, in a book so focused on pregnancy, and, I cannot stress this enough, female empowerment, you’d think abortion would at least be present in some form. And, I suppose, it is. As an afterthought the author added, probably after she thought about counter arguments to this book and decided to be one step ahead of the haters. Seriously though, for the most advanced city, you’re telling me NO ONE thought to tell the 15-year-old girl that she didn’t have to have a child because NO ONE KNEW that abortion exists???? It felt like something slapped on to say ‘hey fellow kids, this exists!!’ but the author’s oddly obsessive tone on children and babies in this book does make me think she doesn’t really see it as a valid option. Which is very feminist and encouraging to young women.
Small side rant on how many illegitimate children there were, and how much cheating there was. Funny, also, how the one time a woman cheats, Fire decides to get all pissy with her, despite literally crying over her abusive, toxic friend/ex/something, whose only personality trait is sleeping around, about 3 pages prior. And also excusing every single man who cheated. Of which there are many. After a point, it did seem to reach soap opera levels of illegitimate children, so they weren’t really very good ‘plot twists’ after a while. Well. Many of them weren’t twists, so I suppose they just weren’t very good plot points. Not that there is much plot to point.
Anyways that’s everything that made me genuinely, passionately angry. Everything else is getting a short(?) summary because it made me feel more than bored, and I don’t care enough to remember it:
- The romance was BORING. I could slap two wet pieces of paper together and get more sparks. How am I meant to root for them when their one personality trait is horses? I don’t like horses! Give them something other than horses! Insomnia is not a personality trait! Give them interests! Hell, give them screen time!!
- This was all meant to be a backstory to the Graceling villain(?) which somehow made him even MORE one dimensional and evil for the sake of evil. I’m almost impressed
- Plot was not there. Why is the war like 20 pages long. That’s not a war. There’s not even any sacrifice, or hardship. It can hardly even be called a scuffle
- One of the characters is called Mydogg. This is getting mentioned as a reminder that just when you think names cannot get stupider, they will. This is also very impressive to me. Maybe I’ll up the rating
- I don’t understand monsters as a concept. They’re not monstrous. They just look like normal animals but garishly neon. They’re basically just shiny pokemon. Fire is just a shiny pokemon. where is the world building
- The MC is so annoying and whiny and omg. I feel like I could beat her in a fight so easily. This enrages me.
- why do we do nothing for 400 pages
Now, I don’t like spreading negativity (evidently) so here’s a some positives:
- I liked the twins, especially the one who was mean to her (he had a name but it’s not important and was probably stupid) because he was mean to her. Unfortunately they lost any semblance of personality at some point which is upsetting
- The prose did improve a lot from Graceling (thank god bc it was shockingly dull) and I actually quite liked it. I can’t tell for sure though because everything it was telling me was painful to my brain. But it did improve.