Fin­ished Fire by Kristin Cashore. This is a prequel/companion book to her young adult fan­tasy, Gracel­ing.

In Fire, Cashore focuses on a girl named Fire, who is so beau­ti­ful that she is con­sid­ered a mon­ster. Men and women are so affected by Fire’s beauty that she has to keep her long, cop­pery hair cov­ered and be sur­rounded by guards at all times. But Fire is just one of many mon­sters, or unusu­ally col­ored crea­tures, in the king­dom of the Dells. There are every­thing from brightly hued mice to cats to vicious raptors.

Trou­ble is brew­ing in the Dells as the young king tries to hold onto his throne. Soon, Fire finds her­self in the mid­dle of the con­flict when the king asks her to use her mind-reading pow­ers to inter­ro­gate pris­on­ers and help save the Dells from war and ruin. Fire agrees, but not with­out some serious reservations …

I loved Cashore’s pre­vi­ous book, Gracel­ing. It was one of my top reads in 2009, so I had high hopes for Fire. I have to say that I was a lit­tle dis­ap­pointed by Fire. There’s about 150 pages of buildup before Fire goes to the capi­tol city to help the king, and the book really dragged for me there in the begin­ning. Also, I didn’t much care for Fire’s ini­tial love inter­est, Archer, who is jeal­ous and controlling.

The idea of beau­ti­ful mon­sters was inter­est­ing and a lit­tle icky at the same time, espe­cially since almost every man who sees Fire basi­cally wants to kiss/hug/rape her. Some women too.

But Cashore’s prose is as beau­ti­ful and ele­gant as ever, and the story really picked up when Fire jour­neyed to the capi­tol city. I enjoyed watch­ing Fire fall in love with a man who should be her mor­tal enemy, and there were lots of inter­est­ing secrets that were revealed in the last third of the book.

Over­all, I didn’t love Fire as much as I did Gracel­ing, but if you’re look­ing for epic young adult fan­tasy, you should def­i­nitely check out Cashore’s books. Thumbs up.

Up next: First Drop of Crim­son by Jeaniene Frost.

Books in my TBR pile: About 20.