Although I was let down by THE FIRE WISH, the most disappointing part was seeing how much potential it had to be great. Instead of taking a creative route with all the unique elements, the book gets held down by overused tropes and annoying cliches like insta-love and stock characters. 
 All the characters can basically be summed up in a few words or two or three adjectives. None of them had a lot of depth, they lacked quirks and faults which made them somewhat hard to relate to and especially hard to care about. Zayele, one of the main characters, was particularly hard to connect with because she had a wonderful habit of being rude to everyone under the sun. 
 It says something when a 320 page book takes you twice as long to read as a 500 page book. Not because the pacing was bad, but because I just couldn't really get into the story. It was very "this happened, then that happened," and that way of writing doesn't hold my interest for very long. 
 THE FIRE WISH could have been a very unique book but instead it ended up being just another regular YA story where the characters fall in love faster than you can turn the page.