Review - Fire

Fire
Author: Karen Cashore
Rating: 4.0/5.0



So I've not been reviewing much because life has been complicated, in a good way. I didn't stop reading books this year, but I did run out of time and energy for posting about them. And back-reviewing is too much to think about at this point so I'll just start off with the book I just finished.

Fair enough? On to the review.

To summarize the plot, Fire is the name of the main character, a girl who is not human by definition, but rather a monster of the human type. The story is set in a place called the Dells, and in this land there are monster animals, that look like everyday animals except that they are crazy colors, like fuschia and apple green, etc... As the story sets out, Fire is the last living human monster, and her monsterness gives her both impossible beauty and the ability to read and sometimes control minds. In an unstable kingdom that is about to go to war she becomes a sought after tool.

When I read Graceling, Cashore's first novel, in September, I felt it had a strong resemblance to a few books by Robin McKinley that I really loved, and that is mostly what made me want to pick up this prequel. I loved Graceling's Po, and hoped we'd see someone similar in this novel.

My initial reaction to introduction of monsters in this book was What? Monsters? And I still am not thrilled by the unoriginal name choice. But getting past that, the world is fairly solid as long as you don't expect a whole lot of explanations. We never find out why, for example, human monsters are pretty much extinct.

Fire is young but she has a past which makes her lonely and we discover, bit by bit, that even the most beautiful girl in the kingdom can have serious problems. And you get to liking her and her people more and more as the story progresses. Most of the characters all have a certain depth, and this, along with their interactions, was to me, the strength this book has over Graceling. The writing overall is a little better in this novel also.

Fire's beauty brings out the good and the bad in others, especially men, which is a strong theme of the book. The author seems to make almost every male character act like an ass at some point, which got a little irritating to me by the end. When it serves no purpose for the plot, why?

Along the same lines, Fire definitely has a feminist air about it, and to me, a weird emphasis on womens' reproduction issues. I'm trying to remember the last time I read about a woman's monthly cycle in a fiction book, and it may be The Clan of the Cave Bear series which I can hardly remember now.

It's hard to discuss some parts of the book without spoiling the plot, but I did have a sneaking suspicion/worry that after love interest A had been resolved there would be a plot twist where love interest B would be a star-crossed lover and maybe blood-related somehow. If that had happened I would have definitely called foul and maybe suggest the book should have been titled Fire: A tragedy.