Fire by Kristin Cashore (THIS IS A RANT)

Title: Fire
Author: Kristin Cashore
Series: The Seven Kingdoms #2
Publisher: Gollancz
Date Published: September 24, 2009
Buy: Amazon

Goodreads Summary

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.

This is mostly a Rant.

After reading Graceling, I was excited for this book and I knew I was going to love it (see the pretty cover…. it demands to be loved), well I was in for a surprise, because I hated the main character with a passion (hate is a strong word and I don’t want to use it but I have to because anything else wouldn’t be enough).

Fire is annoying most of the time and she supposedly loves Archer, but she just uses him for sex. She knows that he loves her and so he wouldn’t refuse. Again the whole” I don’t want to get married and have kids” thing in this book, I was hoping that was only Katsa as a character that followed that policy but it seems that that’s how all Cashore’s characters roll.

All Fire did in this book was cry and be scared of herself. It got on my nerves. She knows damn well she isn’t like her father YET she makes the comparison. She sees herself as a monster and really, if my opinion of her counts for anything, she is. At least Katsa saved the day in some way, Fire did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. She was escorted by guards all the time, when she had her period she couldn’t even leave her own house just to walk in the woods on her own. Also TMI with the whole details about her periods, I don’t care about her menstrual cycle.

If Cashore was trying to be a feminist in this book it back fired SO BAD! There are women getting raped in this book, how is that not looking down upon females and backing up other stereotypes? Where is the wall? I need to bang my head again because all the things wrong with the portrayal of females in this book is coming back to me and it’s making me go crazy.

This book is so utterly confusing, you have people sleeping around everywhere and people getting pregnant and people cheating on each other. Oh yeah and the whole Archer sleeping around with a bunch of women? Not helping the feminist angle of your novel.

Prince Birgain fell in love with Fire because of her sadness, interesting, very interesting; I didn’t know that was possible, that is a lame reason to fall in love with someone.  Makes you think of insta love, although it wasn’t insta love. Oh and Fire was like a stupid kitten who even when she got kicked went crawling back (awww I love you kitten, you can come to me,  no Fire not you, you stay away from me. You come here, I am going to kick you).

What disappointed me even more is that Brocker, Archer’s supposed father didn’t really do much after he was told his son died, I mean if he shed a few honest tears it would seem like he actually cared.

Oh and talk about flat characters, there isn’t much to them so I am not even going to bother discussing them.

I cannot wait to read Bitterblue, because at least I can forget about this book and at least I know that Bitterblue is a stronger character than Fire and then Katsa and Po are also there so YAY! and I reallly hope Bitterblue won’t disappoint me. :/

(I wrote this a while ago so I’ve already read Bitterblue, I still need to write a review for it though)