Jenna Likes to Read

Fire by Kristin Cashore

Posted on 18 February 2010

Fire by Kristin Cashore

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.

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…

I was a little unsure about this book and it took me a while to actually start it.  There were a lot of things I didn’t like about Graceling and I was worried that I would have the same issues with Fire.

Luckily I did not.  I ended up liking Fire more than I liked Graceling.  Fire (the character) was pretty likable.  There were a few times that I wasn’t a huge fan of her and found her frustrating, but I usually understood her motivations even if I didn’t totally agree with them.  I really liked Brigan.  He was an interesting character and I liked getting to know him.  Really, I pretty much liked all of Fire’s friends.

There were definitely things I didn’t like about the book.  At the beginning, I got tired of hearing how beautiful Fire was and how terrible Cansrel was.  I got the point and grew a little bored with the continuous descriptions and stories.  I didn’t really understand why we learned so much about Fire’s period.  I expected it to be important at some point, but it wasn’t.  And I didn’t understand why the Graceling storyline was included in this book.  It felt a bit out of place and pointless.