Fire by Kristin Cashore

Title: Fire
Author: Kristin Cashore
Publisher: Dial
Reading Level: YA, 14+
Publication Date: October 5, 2009
Pages: 480
My Edition: ARC
Amazon Page

Cover Rating: A-
Book Rating: A(+)

Plot - 19/20
Characters - 19.5/20
Writing - 20/20
Originality - 20/20
Entertainment - 10/10
Recommendation - 10/10
Total: 98.5/100

Summary:

Fire, Graceling's prequel-ish companion book, takes place across the mountains to the east of the seven kingdoms, in a rocky, war-torn land called the Dells.

Beautiful creatures called monsters live in the Dells. Monsters have the shape of normal animals: mountain lions, dragonflies, horses, fish. But the hair or scales or feathers of monsters are gorgeously colored-- fuchsia, turquoise, sparkly bronze, iridescent green-- and their minds have the power to control the minds of humans.

Seventeen-year-old Fire is the last remaining human-shaped monster in the Dells. Gorgeously monstrous in body and mind but with a human appreciation of right and wrong, she is hated and mistrusted by just about everyone, and this book is her story.

***MINOR GRACELING SPOILER***

Wondering what makes it a companion book/prequel? Fire takes place 30-some years before Graceling and has one cross-over character with Graceling, a small boy with strange two-colored eyes who comes from no-one-knows-where, and who has a peculiar ability that Graceling readers will find familiar and disturbing...

***END MINOR GRACELING SPOILER***

Review:

How can a book be so outstanding? Kristin Cashore has done it again. I swear, I would do anything to get inside her mind, Graceling was phenomenal, Fire was outstanding, what else can we expect from her? Kristin Cashore is a writing goddess!

If you remember from my Graceling review, you might recognize that they have the same 98.5/100 rating, but for different reasons. In Graceling, the plot was .5 ahead of the characters. But for Fire, the characters got the .5 this time. If asked which one I love the most, I could not decide. Graceling had the fantastic plot that I favored over the characters, but Fire I favor the characters slightly more then the plot.

Fire was one of the most extroadinary characters I have ever seen. Her internal fight with herself about several things, was incredible. Her mind controling the humans, everything about her was incredible. It wasn't just her. I loved every single character in the book. I though Archer brought something great to the story. And Brigan was just fantastic too. Every character was just sensational.

The plot for Fire took a slower pace with not so much exciting scenes as Graceling had. It was a fine pace to it, and the characters really brightened the book up, but Fire was much more a character driven novel, with several suspense scenes that really made the novel. It was great, I loved the ending entirely too much.

Several things that were the same as Graceling were the astounding writing that of Kristin Cashore. The incredible originality of it all, the entertainment and my recommendation for it, were all the same. Fantastic, everything, it is definitely tied with Graceling for my favorite book read this year. Not one bad thing to say about Fire, it was amazing.