Cashore, Kristin - Fire

[oyceter]

I really enjoyed Cashore's first book, Graceling. Fire is set in the same universe, albeit a few decades before, but it's more a companion story rather than a prequel.

Fire is the last human monster in the Dells. Monsters can be any animal, and they're usually brightly colored (Fire is named after her hair) and supernaturally beautiful. Fire finds all these traits a burden, particularly because her monster father was nearly the ruin of the kingdom.

But soon, she gets entangled in court politics, despite many people's suspicion of her and her background.

The book has many of the same drawbacks that Graceling did; the villains feel rather two-dimensional to me, the prose is very clunky in the beginning, and the names are... not great. However, Cashore is very good with her characters, and some of the same things I loved about Graceling show up here again, particularly Cashore's politics about sex != marriage or true love.

Fire is very different from Katsa; just as unsure in ways, but quieter and more obviously feminine due to her monster beauty. I liked her a great deal, though, and she reminds me a bit of some McKinley heroines. I also really loved the romance in this book, although like Fire, it's more traditional than the one in Graceling.

Cashore still has some rough edges to work out in her books, but I love her people and her point of view. Really looking forward to Bitterblue, whom I loved in Graceling.

Links:
- gwyneira's review
- coffeeandink's review

Comments

[gwyneira]

I saw an Amazon review which dinged both books because neither heroine was interested in traditional marriage and thought, "Dude, that's a big plus as far as I'm concerned!"

I thought the prose got better, but yeah, that and the names still need some work. They're a little less "one letter off from a real-world name" style name, but still not terribly convincing.

Fire reminded me of McKinley too!

Ooh, I didn't know the next one was about Bitterblue -- excellent.

[lnhammer]

I too am looking forward to Bitterblue, especially since the craftwork in this one was a definite improvement over Graceling.

---L.

[laughingrat]

Graceling felt like it just barely skirted the edge of being a Mary Sue type story when I read it. I could never figure out what about it kept it from being so, but it never crossed that line for me and I wound up finding it really enjoyable. My co-workers have assured me that Fire is similarly awesome, and yet from the summary, I worry that it's the biggest Mary Sue story ever. Apparently not! :)

[lnhammer]

Fire has even more Mary Sue attributes than Katsa, which the story then takes and pokes at hard with very sharp sticks, to generally excellent effect.

---L.

[laughingrat]

That's really cool. I wonder if Cashore is aware of the potential for her stories to go that way and is working with that consciously. That might be why the books are so good.

[lnhammer]

It's not clear how conscious she was in Graceling, but it's clearly conscious in Fire.

---L.

[the_future_modernes]

I liked this book too!

[(Anonymous)]

Damn. Why do they always have to be beautiful? I'm starting to detest that.

[oyceter]

I was actually okay with it in this book; I found I really like books in which stunning beauty is a tool or a problem, or basically something that's been thought about.