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This book is so hard for me to rate. I've decided on 3 stars because I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it.

I went into this book expecting to learn more about the villain from Cashore's debut novel, Graceling, and while I did learn a little about him, he was not the main character. Which was okay.

What I did love about this book were the characters. I didn't love Fire in the beginning, she was very weak and let Archer take advantage of her. Once she left for King City we began to see her grow and by the end, I appreciated her for how much she had grown.

I also really liked Brigan, he started out with a deep prejudice against Fire simply because she was a Human Monster, but we see him grow and accept her as the story went on. (I may have a little crush on Brigan. Po from Graceling has some competition!)

I liked most of the side characters as well, I think Cashmore has a real strength for writing characters that are unique and flawed.

One of the grievances I had with Graceling (and the main reason I knocked it down from 5 stars to 4) was that I didn't care for her prose. The book was written in short sentences and it drove me crazy when my inner editor was trying to piece these fragments together into a more complex structure. If we took the prose from this book and put it in Graceling, that would have been a 5 star book. She's improved greatly between the two. I hope that the next book in this series, Bitterblue, has the prose of Fire vs Graceling.

The thing I didn't like.... well, the story doesn't follow the typical "map" of a book. Beginning, Middle, Climax. I never really knew what exactly was the point. There were little side things woven in and I wasn't actually sure what the true main plot was. I think it might be better if you go into this expecting less of a traditional "story" and instead expect the unexpected.

In the end, I'm glad I read this book because I ended up caring about the characters and what happened to them. But there were too many slow points in the journey to the end.

If you're reading this to get into the head of Gracelings villian, you'll be disappointed. You'll see a little about him, but he is far from the focus. The world Cashmore created with the Monsters is interesting though, so I don't think you'll walk away entirely disappointed.