Like with Graceling, I listened to Fire on audiobook with Emma Powell narrating it, and after loving Graceling, I was so excited to get round to reading Fire. It was only recently that I actually found out that Fire is actually a spin-off prequel to Graceling and not an immediate sequel. So it follows a completely different character, and a different storyline, but it’s set in the same world… But in a different part of the world.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.

“I don’t want to love you if you’re only going to die.”

― Kristin Cashore, Fire

To be honest, I actually had to plan out this review. I never normally have to, I normally just write a review off of the top of my head and edit it a little bit after. But for the review  of Fire, I HAD TO PLAN IT! I had to write bullet points about what I enjoyed, what I didn’t… Because it’s just so… I don’t even know… Different (?) to Graceling. And honestly? It wasn’t as good as Graceling. Not by far.Like I said before, Fire is set in a completely different place to Graceling. It’s set in the Dells, where they have no gracelings; they have monsters instead. The thing with Fire is that she is the last remaining human monster in the world. She has incredible beauty, and lives in complete fear. A good side note is that the novel is set waaaaaaayyyy before Graceling, like… 50/60 years before.I feel like Graceling was really good and successful in its storytelling because of the character developments and how good it was written. But for Fire, the books characters just weren’t for me, and the plot felt so flimsy and meh and I just couldn’t understand it because of how good Graceling was. And at the time of writing, I have also read Bitterblue, which was AMAZING, so I really don’t understand what was going on with Fire.

“It’s hard to wake from a nightmare when the nightmare is real.”

― Kristin Cashore, Fire

The thing with Fire is that it was just boring in places. The world building wasn’t as magnificent as I thought it would be, the political drama didn’t interest me, BUT Fire’s character is obviously the main strength of this novel. She’s so mentally strong and fierce and believes in herself and her values. So whereas Katsa was physically strong, Fire is mentally.However, I couldn’t connect with Fire as much as I did with Katsa, and the lack of connection that I felt with the main character really dampened my reading experience (or listening experience). ALSO… the romance was just bleh. There’s this character called Prince Brigan who starts out hating Fire with utter passion. He can’t look at her, he can’t speak to her. So he just avoids her altogether. But then… the next time we see him, he’s in love with her (which has something to do with Fire’s beauty and her control of people) and even though Fire realises that Brigan is lusting after her because of her beauty, she doesn’t even care and starts to care about him back. BUT THEN, you also have the character of Archer, who is ultimately in love with Fire and Fire is in love with him, but they have this sorta open relationship thing going on where he sleeps with EVERY SINGLE GIRL THAT HE MEETS, and it really does start to get tiring because Fire KEEPS bringing it up and I’m just like… whatever.A review that I read on Goodreads explained this situation perfectly. They said that “but [it] would make Fire look cruel to dump Archer when he’s openly sleeping with every other girl in the country so we’re going to have to kill him off. This is wartime, we could do it there (although it’d be more likely that he dies from an STD)”I mean, they just describe it perfectly. The romance was just bleh and I didn’t care for it at all.

“I must stop wishing for things to happen. Because something will happen eventually, and when it does, I’ll be bound to wish it hadn’t.”

― Kristin Cashore, Fire

I know that this review is basically me being negative about absolutely everything, but I think it’s because it just let me down so much after reading Graceling. I’ve read a lot of people’s reviews on Goodreads and they say how Fire is their favourite book in the trilogy. I mean, I respect everybody’s opinion, but WHAT? I really wish that I could agree with them, and I wish that I enjoyed Fire, but it dragged for me. I was just wishing for it to get to the end so I could start listening to something else.I feel awful after writing this review now. I keep thinking back to see if I remember anything about the audiobook that I loved but honestly? I really can’t think of anything. I do like how Fire was a mentally strong character, but then that kinda went out the window with the whole Brigan thing… There were some really cool fight scenes… But, I don’t know… I think I’m just going to leave this review now and if I think of anything positive, then I can come back to it later.I feel so bad…