Fire (Graceling Realm, #2) in 2015 Reading Challenge [Closed]

Mar 06, 2014 Kelsey rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2015, siblings, library, rip-my-heart-out-why-don-t-you, fiction, books-set-in-fictional-places, non-demon-monsters, read-in-2014, read-more-than-once, lgbt-main-characters

*The books in this series are all interrelated, but can also be read as standalones. You don’t need to have read Graceling to understand Fire, although both will help in understanding the third book, Bitterblue.

Summary: Fire is a monster. In fact, she’s the last of the human monsters, born like all monsters with brightly-hued hair, in her case, red and orange and pink, and exact replica of the fire she was named for. She can also manipulate people’s minds and read their thoughts, but luckily doe

*The books in this series are all interrelated, but can also be read as standalones. You don’t need to have read Graceling to understand Fire, although both will help in understanding the third book, Bitterblue.

Summary: Fire is a monster. In fact, she’s the last of the human monsters, born like all monsters with brightly-hued hair, in her case, red and orange and pink, and exact replica of the fire she was named for. She can also manipulate people’s minds and read their thoughts, but luckily does not share the insatiable bloodlust like animal monsters. She must keep her hair covered to stave off the unwanted attentions of the weak-willed men it attracts to her like bees to pollen, for part of being a monster is an uncommon beauty- she is the most beautiful woman in the world.
Like all monsters, Fire is a native of The Dells, a kingdom plagued by unrest. King Nash, son of the king Fire’s father was “advisor” to, barely clings to the throne while armies form both to the kingdom’s north and south. The king sends his brother, Prince Brigan, to bring Fire to the palace to use her powers to torture and interrogate prisoners in a last-ditch attempt to uncover plots against the throne. Fire hesitantly goes with him, unsure of this request, as she has always abstained from using her powers if she could help it. She doesn’t want to become like her father, who was a monster in every sense of the word, but she also knows that she may be the only one capable of saving her kingdom from the forces that threaten to destroy it.

My rating: 5 stars

Trigger warnings: character death and injuries, sexual assault and rape, abusive relationships, frank discussions of menstruation

Many Graceling Realm fans will tell you that Fire is their least favorite of the trilogy, but it’s actually my fave, mostly because I relate more to Fire than to Katsa or Bitterblue. That may be just a personal thing, because she and I have such similar personalities and hopes, but I feel like a lot of people unfairly brush off Fire, perhaps because she’s very feminine. She’s not an assassin like Katsa or a ruler like Bitterblue, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t strong. You don’t have to be physically strong to be strong and I feel like, as the follow-up book to Katsa's book, people forget that in regards to Fire.

Another aspect that many bring up about Fire is the plot. It’s a more subtle on than in either Graceling or Bitterblue, in my opinion. Fire isn’t the center of the action like Katsa; she’s not trying to solve a mystery or save lives like Bitterblue. Fire is a young woman living in a kingdom at war torn between her duty to her sovereign and her sense of herself. She knows that her powers could help King Nash, but she also knows that in using them in the particular way he wants her to, she could lose herself in the process. Fire’s greatest fear is becoming like her father, who used his monster abilities to manipulate people to do his bidding and became a dark and twisted man as a result. So Fire, in my opinion is more a character study than either of the other books, although there is of course some action in it as well.

People also love to slut-shame Fire, because unlike most fantasy heroines, she’s not a virgin. Because of her unwanted ability to turn some men into puddles of lust, she’s actually quite selective in her partners, but she unashamedly enjoys sex with the partners she does choose. Fire is also canonically bisexual, although her romances in this book are all with men. So if you’re looking for some lady-love, this isn’t the place to find it, but she is bisexual and it’s important to remember that her romances with men don’t change this fact.

Perhaps the most unique aspect of Fire, however, is the racial diversity. Fire is a dark-skinned woman of color. All of her friends are people of color and many of her enemies are as well. If I recall correctly, the only white people in this book- literally- are the Pykkians and Immiker. (And I might be wrong about the Pykkians. I read this over a year ago. It might literally just be Immiker.) I’m actually very, very saddened by the number of covers for this book that portray Fire as a white woman. Fire is not white. It’s explicitly stated. As upsetting as any whitewashing is, this is one of the worst cases, because of what Fire represents. The fact that in this universe, the most beautiful woman in the world is a dark-skinned woman of color is so important, as is the fact that nearly all of the other characters, whether blessed with monster beauty or just regular human beauty, are also people of color. It’s difficult to find fantasy books with more than one token character of color (except of course for the cheap-offensive-version-of-Islam, nomadic tribes that every other fantasy series for some reason has), let alone a book filled almost entirely with them.

All of these reasons, and several more (I didn’t even get into Fire herself really, who is a treasure), are why Fire is my favorite of the three books.