Actual rating: 3.5 
 First line: "Larch often thought that if it had not been for his newborn son, he never would have survived his wife Mikra's death." 
 Another fantastic fantasy by Kristin Cashore! I realize I'm so behind in reading these books but I'm so happy that I'm finally getting to them and am really enjoying my reading. 
 Fire has a lot of the same things that made Graceling so good. Fire is smart, tough, conflicted, and constantly developing as a character. The amount of crap this girl has to endure is staggering, especially since it's something inherent as her very being. I love the slow-burn relationship that develops between her and Brigan. Starting as enemies, building a grudging respect for each other as it moves from friends to something more. The angst was, as usual, top-notch and were easily some of my favourite parts of the book. There was also an ensemble cast that was superb and had a good variety of characters. 
 I hoped that I would love this as much as Graceling, if not more, but the pace was too slow for my liking. There was a lot of great character development all around but I would've liked to see some more action interspersed, as good chunks of time were passing by. I also wanted more Fire and Brigan page-time together. The relationship between Katsa and Po was, by far, my favourite element of the first book and I guess I just expected to get the same kind of thing. Unfortunately, the two spend a great deal of time apart, and while the angst was everything I wanted, I wanted to see them together more. Let's not forget how over I am of seeing (view spoiler)[every other character getting pregnant. Like there were too many and my eyes wouldn't stop rolling. (hide spoiler)] 
 I'm both excited and sad to move on to Bitterblue, as it's the last one in the Graceling world and it's become familiar as home to me.