Fire (Graceling Realm, #2) in Addicted to YA

Dec 18, 2011 Naomi rated it liked it

second reread: I feel like if I read this now for the first time it would probably be 4 stars, not 3, but I hardly ever change my original rating. This hit me so much harder than it has in the past. First of all, wow, it must be exhausting to be Fire. Just everything, constantly, the exhaustion of being her. It's relentless. Second, I was hit harder by the emotional beats in this story more this time. I don't know if it was just my headspace, or being older, but I really liked it.

On reread: I l ...more

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Aug 14, 2011 Berenice rated it it was ok

Fire is a the last of the human monsters in the Dells, because of their beauty that can drive men and women insane with desire, besides that there's the little problem with their mind controlling powers, because of the treath the present on the Dells they've been eradicated, making Fire an outcast in the Dells. She resides in a secure place where her beauty can't hurt anyone and where she fears she may someday use her powers for evil.
Fire is soon moved out of the safety of her home, for the king Fire is a the last of the human monsters in the Dells, because of their beauty that can drive men and women insane with desire, besides that there's the little problem with their mind controlling powers, because of the treath the present on the Dells they've been eradicated, making Fire an outcast in the Dells. She resides in a secure place where her beauty can't hurt anyone and where she fears she may someday use her powers for evil.
Fire is soon moved out of the safety of her home, for the king needs her to use her powers to help them win the war that is open them. Feeling guilty for it was her fathers fault the kingdom is almost ruin fire goes to their help, escorted by prince Brigan who doesn't trust Fire. Who could trust the daugther of the man that spend his life trying to kill him?
Now Fire must gain prince Brigan's trust, keep king Nash from believing he loves her, interrogate and find the spy's with in the castle and keep herself safe from the mysterious person that keeps sending people after her.

I felt tricked! it all sounded like a great book, she was supposed to have this strange relationship with prince Brigan, her love interest, while the imminent threat of war was upon them. But there was really no real romance there, it was a given they would end up together.
One would think the threat of a war would bring some action or fighting into the book that would draw you in now that you knew where the "romantic" part of the book was going, but not really.
Getting to sympathise with the main character Fire how is this super pretty monster human that it didn't matter how many scars or what happened to her buddy people will always go ga-ga for her mixed with her daddy issues, and always afraid of herself. I just couldn't sympathise there was always something that made her feel unreal, that kept me at bay.
If that wasn't bad enough the story felt all the same, I remember my grade school teacher telling us the way a story works could be compared to a landscape, at first you would find the land flat where they would establish the characters and the story, then you would see little hills that would represent the relevant parts like discovering about the characters past and other stuff relevant to the story, then you would go up a mountain where you would be getting to the climax of the story, and then you would slowly descend to that mountain to find the end of the story. If I where to compared this story to a landscape it would be mostly flat a couple of small hills but never a mountain that would take us to the most interesting part of the story.
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Dec 29, 2010 Krys rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Didn't like it as much as Gracling, but it was still brilliant. ...more

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Sep 08, 2010 Tressa (Wishful Endings) rated it really liked it

This would really be a 3.5 rating. I really liked the story, but some of it was a little too descriptively violent for me and I wish it was more moral. Those aside, it was a great story and one I really enjoyed reading.

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