** spoiler alert ** 
 In this sequel (or, rather prequel) to Graceling, we journey across the mountains to an isolated country where graces don't exist. Instead, the Dells have monsters - variant forms of ordinary animals, but brightly coloured and capable of influencing the minds of those around them. Fire is the last of the human monsters, and it seems that everyone wants a piece of her powers. 
 WARNING: This review contains a lot of spoilers. 
 As I mentioned above, Fire is actually a prequel. The book begins with the birth of Leck -the Big Bad of Graceling - and his journey into the Dells. He disappears from the story, which then becomes more about Fire, her personal relationships, and her role in the bigger politics of the country. But the child Leck still hands around, skirting the edges, and seems to be pulling strings of one sort or another. 
 Which leads me to my first complaint. For a while, I thought Leck was to be the Big Bad here, as well. As in Graceling, we don't really meet the political enemies for a very long time. Rather, the story focuses on Fire working through her own life choices. So I was led to believe that Leck was somehow behind the rebel lords' uprising, or was making them far more dangerous by getting them to work together. Instead of an ominous puppetmaster threatening from the shadows, Leck was a red herring. 
 A red herring with very odd motives. Even though we first see his handiwork when he sends brainwashed archers to kill Fire, he only kidnaps her when he has a chance, with a story that he wants them to be partners. He seems to want to take over King's City, but his actual role in the civil war is unclear. 
 Maybe I just missed it because I wasn't paying enough attention, but Leck's presence in the story seemed superfluous - there only to tie Fire to Graceling. 
 The novel also suffers from what I can only call a Love Octagon. Absolutely everybody is sleeping with absolutely everybody else, and much of the third act is devoted to uncovering everyone's secret parentages so that everyone can have a supportive family as a reward for making it through the plot. 
 The idea of not letting one's parentage define us (as both Fire and Brigan work to forge identities for themselves separate from their fathers, and Archer's own relationship with the father who raised him) is a good one, but it was all watered down at the end when all the characters get to be reunited with their unknown relatives, and Brigan gets to find out that he never was his father's son in the first place! 
 Aspects of the book do play out melodramatic, and the premise itself is rather silly. But the books are clearly intended for a younger audience - preteen or early teen girls - and for that audience, both Graceling and Fire are absolutely fantastic. When I think back to who I was at 12-13 and what books I loved, I can easily see how I would have adored Cashore's works. Even better, these books are good for girls of that age, because they redefine what it means to be a woman, and they give girls options. Katsa didn't want to marry or have children, Fire wants children but can't have them. Their relationships are ones of mutual respect and caring, in which the women have boundaries and have them adhered to. 
 That idea of priming girls to expect appropriate treatment from men is woven throughout the series. Fire, as a monster, is irresistible to men - they find her so beautiful that she is sexually assaulted several times in the story as they "lose control" upon seeing her. When King Nash does this, when he tries to defend his actions by explaining that he just can't control himself when he looks at her, Cashore puts the perfect response in the mouth of his brother: "Well don't look at her, then!" Never is their behaviour Fire's fault, and she has the right to expect the men around her to behave. She has the right not to be jealously kept by someone, even if she does love him. 
 Fire has a lot of flaws, and I wish that Leck were better integrated into the story, but it's a good and healthy book for young girls to read, and I think it would be very well liked within that age bracket.