Ratings19
Average rating3.9
It is not a peaceful time in the Dells. The young King Nash clings to his throne while rebel lords in the north and south build armies to unseat him. The mountains and forests are filled with spies and thieves and lawless men.
This is where Fire lives. With a wild, irresistible appearance and hair the color of flame, Fire is the last remaining human monster. Equally hated and adored, she had the unique ability to control minds, but she guards her power, unwilling to steal the secrets of innocent people. Especially when she has so many of her own.
Then Prince Brigan comes to bring her to King City, The royal family needs her help to uncover the plot against the king. Far away from home, Fire begins to realize there's more to her power than she ever dreamed. Her power could save the kingdom.
If only she weren't afraid of becoming the monster her father was.
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**Books in the Graceling Realm series**
1. [Graceling][1]
2. Fire
3. [Bitterblue][3]
4. [Winterkeep][4]
[1]: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15702282W
[3]: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL16262971W
[4]: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15631967W
Series
4 primary booksGraceling Realm is a 4-book series with 4 primary works first released in 2008 with contributions by Kristin Cashore.
Reviews with the most likes.
This was part very good and part very bad. The lack of plot made it a surprisingly slow read and the fluid writing style made it hard to put down. You can see I'm a little torn here. To read exactly how torn and why, here's my full review: http://sffbookreview.wordpress.com/2012/07/07/kristin-cashore-fire/
Update: 08/07/2015
If you'd like to read this review on my blog.
Rating: 1.5/5 stars.
Fire is the awaited sequel, or rather, companion novel, that follows a different heroin from the same land. Set a few years back before Graceling, we meet Fire, the last Human Monster, and how she tries to live being a part of a falling kingdom, caused by her father, Cansrel, who was an even more powerful and crueler Human Monster.
Yeah, I did not like this, really.
I admit it, nothing was missing. There was a plot, there was a drive, there were the two lovers with a slight love triangle so common, and a heroin with hidden powers she's afraid to use. But already that is super cliche, it's the same formula for every standard Young Adult Fantasy book.
But even that sounded great with the setting this book provided. But it wasn't enough. Not nearly.
Once I finished reading, I realized it reminded me of Graceling. This book had the same weird under the radar plot and the two fighter/lovers, and all those special powers. But in Graceling, it worked. It did not in this book.
Really, the first half was completely boring and tedious, and the second half was better but too random. And once again, like Graceling, I felt the author was trying to achive something bigger than what she could handle, and ended up coming short. And it's really disappointing, because if you see what happened through the whole book, it should have worked, but it didn't.
And I didn't buy the MC character at all. She was too weak and suddenly so strong and so whinny and at the same time silent. She was a contradiction of things. One minute she was crying for this and the next she said it was better like that, and then back to hating. It was a disaster.
And it had that Twilight thing, that every action had a face to join it, and of course, it was over analyzed.
There was also that thing about king Leck and his past. That small story was actually nice, but his place in the plot-line was confusing and totally unnecessary. It felt like, he could have died and we could have avoided so much, but Fire is stupid and unreal so she didn't kill him. And I also needed some explanation about this kingdom thing, like, why are there two worlds and they don't know nothing of each other, and how does that even work? But once again, it was too big for the author and she couldn't handle it.
So yeah, I'm really disappointed with this book, specially because there's thing I kind of liked in Graceling that I now want to cringe my eyes at.
I don't recommend you to read this book, unless you're like really obsessed with it and need more of it. But I'll call it a waste of time.