Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Erica

Fire
Kristin Cashore
Release Date: October 2009
Publisher: Dial Books
Pages: 480

Rating: 5 stars

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 Graceling and has one cross-over character with Graceling, 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...

Fire was phenomonal, there's no other way to put it! Starting with page 1, it drew you in, leaving you entranced with Fire's world. Once again, Kristin Cashore draws up an outstanding world, just outside of the one we encounter in Graceling. Graceling was outstanding, and when reading Fire I wasn't sure what to expect. Fire surpassed all my expectations and then some.

All the characters were very 3-D, which added a lot to the novel. Fire was such a great character, her past was revealed as part of the story. So you not only got what was going on now, but also what happened in the past. All the characters really draw you in with their emotions, and that's a big part of the novel. I loved the romance between Fire and Brigan, it was slow building, but it stuck out at readers like a red hot poker.

The fact with the "monsters" that was really great was that monsters had the same effect on everyone and the effect wasn't gender specific. In most novels, it's the female character that gets people to do their bidding, but in Fire Fire's father had people groveling to do his will.

Definately a must read! (Though make sure to read Graceling before you read Fire, or you ruin Graceling.)