Fire

First review and it's on the first day!

Wow, someone give me a sticker! :D

Today, I finished Fire, by Kristin Cashore.

First book of 2011, screw yes. >:D

But what can I say? It was disappointing compared to Graceling. :\ And inexplicably confusing. With all the rapists (no joke) in this book, I can't tell who's related to whom.

My short review: M...moreFirst book of 2011, screw yes. >:D

But what can I say? It was disappointing compared to Graceling. :\ And inexplicably confusing. With all the rapists (no joke) in this book, I can't tell who's related to whom.

My short review: Meh.

My slightly longer, less spoiler-filled review: Fire was not intriguing, nor was it one of those simple pleasures that you speed through even though it’s not good at all, i.e., the Clique. It was so badly revised and executed, because Kristen Cashore just tossed all her ideas together in the book. “Oh, hey, let’s use this! Oh, hey, let’s do this and make this complete muddled mess and all of these unnecessary subplots that will make readers pull their hair out! Whoopee!”

Another short review: UGH.

This section of my review will have some spoilers, but this isn’t completely spoiler-filled. So if you’re okay with teensy spoilers that are like “Po isn’t actually graced with hand-to-hand combat!”, not “HOLY CRAPZOIDS PO IS BLIND OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.”

Whoa, there, Cashore. Way too much casual sex here, eh? I don’t think that you have to make sure that half of the characters all had sex when they were young or are rapists. It’s just… weird. I mean, we don’t act like this, and most people don’t act like this. And why on earth does Archer have to be such a male whore? I thought that most characters were supposed to be a little better than that. It’s really stupid, I’m sorry to say. I get that Cansrel and Nax would do that, but that’s because they’re just bored. Archer is a different story. If Cashore had eliminated some of the casual sex in the story, I would’ve been much happier with the book.

My new name for this book is Rape and Casual Sex.

No one’s parents were who they seemed to be. This goes in with all of the cheating, rape, and whoring around, but it still makes me really pissed off that no one’s parents are who they seem to be. I mean, can’ t you just go one part of a book without having a “Luke, I am your father” moment? :\ It’s kinda annoying when it happens every other page.

The book was immensely confusing. Cashore never really described setting change at all (I didn’t quite understand the part where Fire got kidnapped), and her descriptions of what happened in battles or skirmishes were a bit hard to understand. When I read books by Rick Riordan, it’s easy to get what’s happening in the battles and whatnot, but hey, you can’t really compare. Rick Riordan is just blessed with battle-describing skills.

Cashore rushed the end of the book and dragged the first part. It seemed that they spent forever planning, and when the impending battle finally came, they skipped it and the epilogue came. So basically, this is what the plot structure was like this.

Pitiful, isn’t it?

Yes. Kristin “Pitiful” Cashore.

Wow, I am so good at nicknames.

Now, I must say, the secrets and whatnot that Fire was holding was actually a good idea. It’s nice to have a character with so many burdens that were brought onto her because of herself. Yay, flawed characters! Fire didn’t really annoy me except for the fact that she was whoring around with Archer or whatnot. I was just annoying. I hated it. NYAH. But really, Fire was the perfect character: she had everything but she saw her own flaws, unlike people that run around going “I’m so perfect! Look at me! I’m too sexy for my shirt!” or something among those lines.

Brigan was… awesomesauce. I love those cliché characters that are all coldhearted and whatnot on the outside and have their darling little angel that makes them who they actually are. It warms my heart, so to speak, even though my heart should be pretty warm. I’m not reaching in there and feeling it, though. And neither are you. I’m gonna frigging kill you and rip your head off if you try to touch my internal organs.

Leck was creepy; I can say no more on that subject. His character was pretty awesome. I was kinda mad about how he **BIG SPOILER**


killed Archer,


**BIG SPOILER OVER**

but in retrospect, I really didn't care.

*coughs* Anyways, Fire was an okay book. I didn’t completely hate it, even though there were many flaws. I guess it’s just a bias for the writer because she had written such an amazing book before. It’s like how I feel about Suzanne Collins.

So should you read it?

Maybe.

Should you look up a summary before reading it?

Definitely.

So go on. Get the summary and read, child.

My rating: 2 stars