Fire (edition 2009)

This entertaining prequel to Graceling is full of vibrant characters and a charming story. Fire is a girl with special abilities and she would be the envy of almost any girl (until that girl actually had to live with the consequences of those abilities).

Fire is so beautiful that she captures the attention (both good and bad) of all around her, and her mind-controlling abilities don't exactly help her to make friends. She usually has the best of intentions, but it doesn't help that her father was one of the most reviled men in the kingdom, and that he also shared these special abilities.

Although the love story included in this book was slightly predictable, the rest of the plot is filled with unexpected twists and turns. For the most part this story is fresh, exciting and fast-paced.

Even though I knew that Fire was a prequel I was disappointed that there was only one character whose abilities and giftedness were related in any way with those in the book Graceling. Without that one character, Fire might as well have been about an entirely different world, because the people, animals and the cultures were so vastly different. The upside to this, of course, is that this makes for a very good stand alone read. You could very easily read and enjoy these two books in any order.

Fortunately, once I got used to the idea of this book being almost entirely unrelated to Graceling, I was already captivated by the story of Fire, her life, and her desire to rise above the legacy of her evil father.

If you liked Kristin Cashore's writing in Graceling then you will probably love Fire as well. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a good young adult fantasy novel. ( )

5/9/10 How did I not notice until now that I never rated this when I read it? Some aspects were above a 4 but it balanced out there, perhaps a little on the high side. ( )

Amazon preorder,Amazon received

The story had a very slow beginning, but I think it was needed to completely understand this world, the plot, and the important characters in it.

Fire is a very strog female heroine, with high morals, and a huge heart. Leck needed to be explained in the beginning, if not, the later part he played would not have made much sense at all - and his part was big, and it had a lot to do with who Fire is and what she had to do to save the Kingdom of Dell and those she loves.

Brigan, Nash, Clara and Garan, Asher, Rouen and Bocker were all fleshed out characters, and with their good and bad sides, they helped both Fire, themselves and each other towards a better world without war.

The plot was quite compliated, with a lot of enemies, and even some allies who turned out not being allies at all, however, it was well written, with wonderful descriptions of the world, the nature, the monsters and of the characters, I can 'see' in my mind how Dell looks, and it is beautiful in some places, but barren and grey in others.

The ending was bittersweet, but made a lot of sense. I look forward to the next book in this series - although I'm not so sure there will be any sightings of the charcaters from this book. ( )

Kristin Cashore is a very talented writer. This stand alone story was so engrossing and romantic and I was actually interested in the fantasy world she created. Usually I get annoyed or bored with the world building aspects of fantasy lit. But she is such a skillful writer. A real pleasure to read.

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