Book Review #7: Fire by Kristin Cashore

Hello Dear Reader!

It’s been a long while since the last book review because of finals and just all the chaos surrounding the end of the semester, but I’m back! This week’s book review is on Fire by Kristin Cashore, a companion story to her other book, Graceling, which I will be searching for because I thoroughly enjoyed reading Fire.

Fire is a young adult fantasy book that follows the story of Fire, a young half-human, half-monster being with fiery hair and green eyes who has a love for music and is quite the prodigious fiddle player. Living in the Dells, Fire has to eventually venture to King’s City because of a brewing war between rival kingdoms, bringing some action into the mix as well as an interesting romantic side story. So, if you like young adult fantasy books with a lot of action and a romantic side story, this book is for you! If not, then still give it a try, because the world this book is set in is huge and very well-built. Not to mention, the character development is phenomenally done.

Before get into the specifics of Fire, here is its synopsis:

She is the last of her kind... It is not a peaceful time in the Dells. In King City, the young King Nash is clinging to the throne, while rebel lords in the north and south build armies to unseat him. War is coming. And the mountains and forest are filled with spies and thieves. This is where Fire lives, a girl whose beauty is impossibly irresistible and who can control the minds of everyone around her. Exquisitely romantic, this companion to the highly praised Graceling has an entirely new cast of characters, save for one person who plays a pivotal role in both books. You don't need to have read Graceling to love Fire. But if you haven't, you'll be dying to read it next.

Now it’s time for the review!

As mentioned above, main character Fire is a red-haired, green-eyed, half-human, half-monster being, her father the infamous Cansrel of King’s City, who was known to be rather ruthless towards humans and monsters alike and being a really bad influence on the previous King Nash. Fortunately, Fire is nothing like her late father and adores children, absolutely loves playing her fiddle and teaching music, and is rather guarded and level-headed. She’s also a pretty good shot when it comes to using a bow and arrow, which is pretty cool.

Surrounding Fire is a cast of very unique and diverse characters, such as childhood friend and simultaneous friend with benefits—which creates a very complicated romantic relationship—Archer; the four very different but very lovable quartet of siblings living in King’s City, Clara, Garan, Nash, and Brigan; and a very creepy manipulative Graceling who is no older than a middle schooler. While there are quite a few of these characters, Kristin Cashore does a magnificent job in defining their characters, making their personalities believable. Their interactions with each other were also very entertaining and helped me love even the most terrible ones.

Another thing Cashore does a magnificent job in describing is the world this book is set in, which is absolutely enormous! To put things in perspective, Fire only covers one part of the map that is provided in the book, generally called The Dells. The other part of the map, where the seven kingdoms are located, is only ever visited in the prologue of the book and merely mentioned in the main story. Also, not every location in the Dells was visited in Fire, with the main protagonist only ever going back and forth between her original home in the Little Grays and King’s City and several places in-between. Other characters have been mentioned to go or live in these locations not visited by the main character, but not described in great detail, which I think adds to just how massive this world is.

Within the Dells, coexisting with normal animals and humans, are brilliantly colorful beings called monsters, which can range from brightly colored insects to green cats to even purple and yellow flying raptor monsters. There are known to be monster-human hybrids with Fire being the last of her kind. They are distinguishable by their practically perfect beauty, unnaturally colorful hair and eyes, and their ability to naturally draw the attention of non-monster beings, especially humans. For this reason, human-monster hybrids are both highly sought after and hated, the latter caused by Fire’s ruthless late father Cansrel as he was the previous king’s advisor.

Why? I will never know.

I genuinely fell in love with story of Fire because of how well done the character development was. Kristin Cashore really takes you into the mind of Fire and what she thinks and feels about certain people, especially herself being a monster-human hybrid and the daughter of the most insane and ruthless man in the Dells. I especially loved her romantic side story, starting with childhood friend Archer and ending with a character I’m so happy she ended up with but am not going to mention because spoilers are very much a thing.

I will say that it was a fantastic slow burn romance, which is something I personally love.

So, Fire rating:

10/10, will probably read again, and will definitely look for Graceling.

There really wasn’t anything I didn’t like about the story, which is completely biased on my part. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and I highly, highly recommend it, especially to those of you who like a good young adult fantasy read with a nice slow burn romance side story.

That is all for this book review, dear reader! I hope you enjoyed reading it, and I hope you give Fire a read. It’s definitely one of my favorite books ever.

Thanks for reading!