Review Detail

I obviously genuinely enjoyed Graceling by Kristin Cashore; I understood why everyone was so in love, even if that particularly intense emotion never paid me a visit while reading Cashore’s first novel. But the potential is like fire—haha—in that you can’t ignore something so violent and vivid, especially when it’s capable of destroying you. Cashore’s writing has that capability. Her stories feel like old tales bound in leather and passed by many hands. There’s something familiar and almost timeless; I can clearly picture sitting somewhere and listening to a very gifted storyteller regale me with accounts of multi-colored beasts and a heroine so beautiful it sometimes hurts—hurts herself and others. Fire by Kristin Cashore is not just about the fantastical, it’s also about self-acceptance and doing what’s right even when the whole world is ready to destroy someone so vulnerable, strong, and thoughtful.

Fire—as in the protag—has all this power at her disposal, and, like her dreaded father before her, is more than capable of letting loose and caring little, if not at all, for the consequences. She could be a selfish, cruel, and careless character with her gift, but she makes a decision in every moment to fight the ghost of what her father was, however satisfying it would be to just give up and let go, in spite of how she is treated even without intentionally causing harm. Everywhere she walks she is loathed, revered, envied, and adored so much so that beauty is an outright curse. How can she know all the love and affection she craves without it being an extension of the reactions to her face and body? It’s heartbreaking to see why she can keep close only so few in a circle and never reach out beyond that, for so many minds remain weak and tainted by something far out of her control. Her capacity to help and do good is stunning when so few have given her a reason against wreaking the havoc she could undoubtedly unleash on a whim.

Her sacrifices and harsh decisions, her scarred heart which matches her body, her past which constantly bleeds pain into her present, make Fire a truly beautiful and accessible character where Katsa is not. The characters already a part of her life and the ones she comes to know each realize this in their own way, and, in giving her a chance, they become things of beauty as well. Her eventual slow-simmering romance with a brooding, stoic, and unfriendly Prince Brigan feels like reward and relief, even as it brings along tension, confusion, and many misunderstandings. What starts out as a one-way loathing acquaintance—as Fire has irritation but no hate for the outstandingly brutal prince—unravels to something tender, friendly, and unavoidable. Fire and Brigan are so similar in so many ways even as certain aspects of their personalities veer away from the other. They balance and fit at the same time, and it’s cause to yearn for more moments between them in Fire by Kristin Cashore.

The plot is so inherently layered and overlaps in all the right places—threads dangling to be pulled only when Cashore feels the story is ready. The intensity, the action, the mysteriousness and the wondering all make this story so interesting and engrossing. War politics, courtly intrigue, and a few gorgeous handfuls of battles—WHICH I LIVE FOR—put all those aforementioned elements to use until we’re spinning in uncertainty with every suspicious character that surfaces and secret that’s discovered. Villains tangle and interchange, constantly shifting, so that the characters are cornered from all sides and are never quite safe, quite able to go unguarded. And all the hardwork clears the way for an exciting and satisfying closing.

Fire by Kristen Cashore is bitterness, despair, tentative sweetness, profound prose, richness, and full of invention. Each memory, hardship, and emotion are well-written gifts laid in every page. Although I’m unsurprised by the skill woven into the story, it’s brilliance as a story, I am a little astonished by the depth of feeling I have for this second novel.