Review: Fire

Fire by Kristin Cashore

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



It breaks my heart to give Fire three stars. Mainly because I loved its predecessor so much.

The first few pages of Fire were spectacular enough: the initial story kept the eerie flavor of some chapters in Graceling that dealt with one of the creepiest antagonists I've encountered in the YA genre. I was really absorbed in this "back story," and had goosebumps while reading it. I found it interesting how Fire deftly explored the existence of "unnatural" but natural (because they exist in the real and natural world, as explained by one of the main antagonists) "monsters" such as serial killers and rapists.

But, sadly, it was all downhill from there. Sigh.

While the strength and grace of the words used in Graceling were brilliantly palpable to the mesmerized reader, in Fire they were at times unnatural. I understand that other readers were turned off by some controversial aspects of Fire's story, e.g. the "casual" sex, belittlement of marriage. Those I can take: in Graceling some of these elements were even made interesting. But I have qualms with the heroine of the story. I know she's supposed to be monstrously beautiful and all, but I felt that the entire story revolved around that concept. She was supposed to be a strong character, but in my eyes, she was made weak. I mean, weakness in a character can be made into a "storytelling" asset. But Fire was too beautiful, too whiny, too fragile for my taste. I wouldn't want a future daughter to model herself after her.

I also had issues with the redefinition of "monster" in the book. While at first the idea of monster as "otherworldly beautiful" was fresh and interesting, the subsequent repetitions of the concept in Fire eventually became trite.

I hope K. Cashore's Bitterblue will bring back memories of Graceling for me.



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