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So. Where do I begin?

Perhaps I should begin with my rating. One star seems harsh, truly, but goodreads describes that rating as, "Didn't like it." And that is an accurate description, for I simply didn't like the book.

Thus I'm sticking with one star.

And now for the book itself: I was hyped for the day I would actually get my hands on it and presumably storm through the whole thing in six hours, as I had done with Graceling. This anticipation was fueled by the raving reviews (on goodreads and elsewhere) which called it EVEN BETTER than it's companion, DIFFERENT, BETTER WRITTEN, STUNNING, BOUND TO "WOW" YOU -

Well, all I can do is wonder if others had read this book with their eyes closed.

Please, all ye who read this rant and disagree with me, don't think of me as being accusatory; it's just that, plowing my way through the book, that was one of the thoughts which ammounted to my overall disbelief. Different? Fire is a mirror image of Graceling. Same plot. Same characters. Same nuances. Except, it seems, it is Graceling with the good sucked out of it. Katsa, in the first book, was spirited and interesting. (With her temper, she reminds me somewhat of Thirrin of the Icemark - possibly the best, strongest, and most genuine female protagonist I have come to encounter. Kudos, Mr. Hill, for everything.)But Katsa did have some sort of ridiculous internal battles along the way, which I placently accepted, so long as there were heads to bash and throats to slit and all that general badassery was involved. Take away the ability to kill ten men with a toothpick in under thirty seconds, and you have Fire. Brigan was a sort of mofified version of Po, Archer was Giddon, and so on and so forth. (Leck, incidentally, was completely unnecessary. So he gave us a prologue and killed some people. Great.) It mollifies me at the amount of connections I can make between the two books, and this shows me that Cashore is limited in her ability to weave characters, because eventually they all start reflecting one another.

I had expected for Fire, the most imporant persona in the book, to be a sort of Katsa, if not having immense strength in body, then in spirit.

SHE. IS. NOT. A. STRONG. LEAD.

Even if she were not a lead, she would still be a completely useless and annoying brat. She whines, she mopes. She cries. (Not that crying is a bad thing, but she cries for absolutely no purpose.) She seems to hardly do anything herself, and constantly rely on other characters to help her. She has no pride, she allows herself to be waited on by a team of armored bodyguards, and cannot survive alone - such a pity, because that was what made Katsa so admirable. Perhaps Cashore intended them to be different, simply by making Fire weak? But she is not. Where did the author intend Fire to go, whom was she trying to impact?

And Cashore had tried to impact her readers, I really think she tried. Throughout Fire's epiphanies (usually after she ends up storming out on some character on another - she does that a lot), Cashore tries to send across messages. But the thing is, a) they're so naive that it's not worth the trouble, Cashore, or b) they never get to the reader at all, because Fire is a sort of pitfall in the many heroines of literature. What was I supposed to have learned, that one shouldn't be ashamed of one's parentage? That it really can't be helped that society will see a person as someone else, no matter how different their heart and intentions are? "Be yourself" - is that what is put across here? Fire discovers that she can use her nature for good in the end, she really can! Well, jolly good for her. Fire can't get over death; she can't get over truth. By the end I was screaming, GET UP, WOMAN. GET A GRIP. AND GO SAVE THE WORLD. Really, I was so desperate to see her take control for once and ride out to meet the looming army with a battle standard in hand, the dawn glinting on her silver helm. I was that much saddened.

But moral lessons aside, I was extremely irritated - make it vexed, by some point - about some of the technicalities. The sex lives of all the different characters accounted for, oh, let's say, half the plot. Most of the book was spent running around discovering who slept with whom, who sired whom, and who killed their respective fathers and how. I mean, come on, the whole "I am your father," "REALLY?!" thing has gotten so old, and Cashore drops that bombshell a few times in the book. Incidentally, yes, Cashore, Fire's great secret I figured out ten chapters before you finally gave it away.

It ran like a great big midday TV soap opera. There was too much sleeping around, too much desire to sleep around, and inability to stop oneself from sleeping around. Also in the realm of irritating lay Fire and her seriously annoying menstrual necessities, the whole impregnation and contraception aspect, and too much talk of having children, not having children, and being pregnant. Countless times I had smacked the book against my forehead, howling WHY IS THIS NECESSARY TO THE PROGRESSION OF THE PLOT?

Beneath all these different feels lurks a sort of hideous impression about what Cashore may have implied in this book. She asks, somewhere towards the middle, "What is the point of a woman monster?" and it seems to me she answers it. If she truly believes something like that, then I should like to take the book itself and smack someone with it, preferrably her. Of course, I could be completely wrong, so I'll keep this suspicion to myself. But it seemed to me as though the book, which was supposed to be feminist, went way, way, way in the other direction.

The writing, by the way, was not that good. Not much description, and not much unique brilliance. It does not shine. An exception I made for the fiery persona in Graceling, but here it only underlines the Fire's flaws.

Signing off, I'll now take my leave.