Fire by Kristin Cashore

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.

What happened?!?!?

I read Graceling when it first came out and it was amazing!  Great storyline, great characters, the book had awesomeness seeping from its pages!

Then I read Fire.  Maybe it was the fact that this book had completely different characters and took place in a different location entirely (well the other side of the kingdom) that threw me off.  Either way, this book promised romance and adventure while all I got was confused and disappointed.

So this book takes place before Graceling, it takes a little while to infer that from the text because the 'pivotal character' is King Leck and he is only in the first few chapters of the book.  As a side note.  He is in no way pivotal to this book other than to learn that this is a prequel.

Fire is pretty and fawned over but only because she is a monster.  In this time, monsters are weird-colored creatures (humans and animals alike) that want to eat each other.  Yep, monsters want to eat other monsters and people too sometimes if they're desperate.  But other than the cannibalism, Fire can read minds and control them.

She embarks on a quest to save the kingdom from war because her dad helped create the chaos before he was killed, and she feels responsible to clean up his mess.  On the way she meets a war general with whom she starts to fall in love with (she doesn't want to feel anything for him but wants to 'take him to her bed' *wink, wink*).  But she already has another lover "insert awkward love triangle here".

The quest takes up most of the book and it was very confusing because you have to orient yourself with the characters the first time they appear.  You get their name, a short description and have to remember that for the next 400 pages.  When you need a break from travelling Ms. Cashore adds more to the love story, which gets boring and repetitive over time.

The last task that Fire has to complete is the best part of the book.  It is adventurous and engaging but completely predictable.  There was one minor twist I didn't see coming but that didn't play too much into the storyline.

The book ends with Fire staying at the kingdom and not looking back.  That's it.  The end.

This is a mediocre review for a mediocre book.  Nothing about this book got me excited to read it again or even review it.  I read this book a month ago and I still don't know what to say about it.  If you didn't read Graceling, forget all about the existence of Fire and go read it.  THAT is worth your time.