It is not a peaceful time in the Dells. The young King Nash clings to his throne while rebel lords in the north and south build armies to unseat him. The mountains and forests are filled with spies and thieves and lawless men.
This is where Fire lives. With a wild, irresistible appearance and hair the color of flame, Fire is the last remaining human monster. Equally hated and adored, she has the unique ability to control minds, but she guards her power, unwilling to steal the secrets of innocent people. Especially when she has so many of her own.
Then Prince Brigan comes to bring her to King City. The royal family needs her help to uncover the plot against the king. Far away from home, Fire begins to realize there's more to her power than she ever dreamed. Her power could save the kingdom.
If only she weren't afraid of becoming the monster her father was.
My Review:
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
On the other side of the world in the Seven Kingdoms, lies the Dells. Here there is a magical species that is extremely, brightly colored and drawn by blood. There are a few humans who are this special, and Fire is one of them. With the ability to persuade and almost hypnotize, Fire is a woman who is torn between being her father’s daughter and being the woman she was meant to be. When an evil slowly starts to permeated the world, Fire must make decisions that could mean death, but could bring a life that she always wanted.
I’ll be honest with you, I had a hard time with this novel. It was considerably darker than Graceling (which I loved!), and the anti-marriage, anti-pregnancy, and pro casual sex was a lot stronger in this book and made it hard to deal with at times. There were actual places in this book that I actually skipped pages or had to put the book down because it got so dark.
Similar threads of themes and occurrences happen between Graceling and Fire. They both fight through an extremely cold terrain that threatens to kill them. They both end up fighting the same man (though he is younger in Fire than he is in Graceling). Fire and Katsa both feel like monsters, but only Katsa seems to get closure from that false idea.
Overall, this is an okay book. I recommend it only for the back story that you get for Graceling, and for those of us OCD book readers, so that you can say you read the whole series.
Happy Reading!
Cana
I got a quarter of the way through this one and then had to put it down for a while I haven't picked it up since. I know Fire is meant to be beautiful but I got a bit tired of being reminded of it every few lines.
ReplyDeleteI honestly loved this one more than Graceling. I kind of liked the darkness of it, I get tired of reading happy things with happy endings. I absolutely love, love, love Brigan, he really made the book for me.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I did love Brigan, but I didn't like Fire herself as much. It is ok to have some darkness, but the self hate and self pity could have been left behind.
ReplyDeleteThis is the seccond review I've seen for this book today and now I know I HAVE to pick it up! It sounds really good! Thanks for the review :)
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