As in all of my recent reviews, and especially the ones that people
have already reviewed a few times for
Cannonball, I’m going to Amazon
for the 10-second plot summary before I go on to talk about other
themes:
"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."
I’ve seen
Fire alternatively described as either a prequel or a “companion” to
Graceling. Indeed, they are two separate stories in the same universe, but
Fire does actually spoil
Graceling a bit. Basically, reading
Graceling
first is recommended, not because either story is required for the
other to make sense, but because a fairly pivotal reveal in Graceling is
given away in the prologue of
Fire with little fanfare. In any
case, I surely enjoyed Cashore’s second foray into the fantasy universe
she constructed for
Graceling, and as with that novel, much of
Fire’s
strength comes from its wonderful characters. I love that Cashore is
seemingly relishing the opportunity to write as many different “strong
women” as possible, while demonstrating that there isn’t some kind of
mold that these women need to fit into in order to be considered
“strong.” Within
Fire alone, we meet Fire herself, Princess and
Clara, members of Fire’s guard Musa and Mila, and more. All of these
women are admirable, intelligent, capable human beings who are also
obviously different, personality-wise, from one another.
I also love that Cashore does not shy away from some “political”
issues. She candidly discusses birth control and abortion (without using
those words, but there are explicit descriptions of herbs that can do
these things,) and sex is treated as — shockingly! — a pretty normal
course of action for relationships. Amusingly, on Amazon, this is always
brought up in reviews as a “parents beware!” kind of thing. I
understand to an extent; if there are really younger kids reading this,
it may be a bit inappropriate, but as a slightly older “young adult,” I
can only think it is a good thing that there is good literature out
there that is encouraging these kinds of discussions and not pretending
that sex doesn’t exist.
I only have one complaint about this novel, and it does involve the
SPOILER FOR GRACELING.
Basically, I kind of thought that the whole subplot with Leck was kind
of unnecessary. It may be that Cashore’s intent was to weave this
character into
Fire in order to make the
Graceling
connection more obvious, but all things considered, his involvement
added up to very little that couldn’t have happened in the context of
the war that was already going on. For me, this subplot broke up the
pacing of the rest of the book and was an unnecessary distraction from
the more compelling story in the main plot.
Overall, I obviously liked this (I definitely wrote enough about it.)
I’m going to stop reviewing so that I can tear into the final book in
the series!
