Steve Review: Fire by Kristin Cashore

May 19, 2010 by shanyn

Title: Fire
Hardcover, 352 pages
Author: Kristin Cashore
Publisher: Dial
Publication Date: October 5, 2009

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Book Summary:
Fire, Graceling’s prequel-ish companion book, takes place across the mountains to the east of the seven kingdoms, in a rocky, war-torn land called the Dells.

Beautiful creatures called monsters live in the Dells. Monsters have the shape of normal animals: mountain lions, dragonflies, horses, fish. But the hair or scales or feathers of monsters are gorgeously colored– fuchsia, turquoise, sparkly bronze, iridescent green– and their minds have the power to control the minds of humans.

Seventeen-year-old Fire is the last remaining human-shaped monster in the Dells. Gorgeously monstrous in body and mind but with a human appreciation of right and wrong, she is hated and mistrusted by just about everyone, and this book is her story.

Wondering what makes it a companion book/prequel? Fire takes place 30-some years before GracelingGraceling, a small boy with strange two-colored eyes who comes from no-one-knows-where, and who has a peculiar ability that Graceling readers will find familiar and disturbing…

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Steve Review:
I recently read Graceling (Ms. Cashore’s first novel; review here) and found it fantastic.  This prequel-type companion novel received similarly favorable reviews and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.  Literally, we went to Barnes and Noble and bought it, lol.  I had no idea what to expect, didn’t read any of the previews or the back cover.  What I found was a book that was MUCH MORE directed at the female reader.  I don’t blame the author, I’m sure the majority of the readers who walk into a book store and find Fire, a book about a female monster-human and her struggles, ARE female so there is no reason that she shouldn’t be shooting for this specific audience.  My only critique regarding this approach is that I didn’t find Graceling nearly as focused on a one gender audience.  And as a male, I enjoyed Graceling very much, and was left a bit disappointed with her narrow target audience in Fire.

Down the line I’m sure this series will intertwine more so that Fire actually becomes the companion book that it says it is on the front cover.  Until then, it’s more of a friend of a friend who was a companion of your mother’s at one point book (I’m saying that I didn’t find it very companion-y, hah.).  I understand that it is set in a distant land 30 some years before Graceling takes place, I understand that the characters are different, and I understand that they even have a (yes that is correct 1, not 2, not 3, 1.) character in common.  The story hardly revolves around this character though and barely touches on him for most of the book save the prologue.  I just wasn’t expecting a companion novel to be so vastly different.

Fire is a teen female monster-human and she struggles with being different, getting persecuted because of her differences, and wielding her vast powers that she has because she is a monster lady.  Her war torn home is not a safe place and even with her abilities she struggles to adjust.  I think the summary above does a decent job of setting up the story so I won’t ruin any of the major plot lines, but there is certainly romance, anger, spies, and war to keep the reader’s attention.  The action of the first book is quasi-present.  There is fighting and war and attacks, but they seem distant and rarely relevant to Fire herself unless the main character was to die in the first chapter of the book which I found unlikely.

Let me clarify a bit because upon re-reading this review it seems as though I’m being quite harsh on Fire.  It was a decent book, no doubt.  I read it and enjoyed a lot of it.  Coming off Graceling though, I was expecting so much more than a story of a teen monster-human who has trouble with her feelings each and every chapter.  The author’s narrower target audience was really something that honestly disappointed me.  Compared to the author’s first novel this book simply isn’t graced (OK, fine, it can be graced but more like one of those useless graces; like being the best at eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or being able to catch a lady bug with your toes.) ((YEAH THAT’S RIGHT DOUBLE PARENTHESES: if you don’t understand the “graced” joke go back and read Graceling, for real, it was excellent.))

Book Cover: 3/5 – Yay, arrows?
Book Title: 3/5 – Self titles are meh.
Plot: 7/10 – Some fantasy, some romance, and a lot of feelings, still got a 7 though.
Characters: 6/10 – The characters are fine, they just don’t compare to the previous books favorably.
Writing: 7/10 – Very directed towards the female audience.
Ending: 8/10 – Decent but predictable.

Overall: 34/50 – A female perspective might have improved this score by 4-5 points, not enough to push it past the faster paced, more enjoyable Graceling though.

If you enjoyed Steve’s review feel free to check out more of his reviews here!  If you missed the recent Q and A that we posted, click here to help YOU get to know Steve better.

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