Fire --- Kristin Cashore

Rating: 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Pages: 352

Official Summary:
Fire, Graceling's prequel-ish companion book, takes place across the mountains to the east of the seven kingdoms, in a rocky, war-torn land called the Dells.

Beautiful creatures called monsters live in the Dells. Monsters have the shape of normal animals: mountain lions, dragonflies, horses, fish. But the hair or scales or feathers of monsters are gorgeously colored-- fuchsia, turquoise, sparkly bronze, iridescent green-- and their minds have the power to control the minds of humans.

Seventeen-year-old Fire is the last remaining human-shaped monster in the Dells. Gorgeously monstrous in body and mind but with a human appreciation of right and wrong, she is hated and mistrusted by just about everyone, and this book is her story.

Wondering what makes it a companion book/prequel? Fire takes place 30-some years before Graceling and has one cross-over character with Graceling, a small boy with strange two-colored eyes who comes from no-one-knows-where, and who has a peculiar ability that Graceling readers will find familiar and disturbing...

Review:
I liked this book better than Graceling. It takes place before Graceling and has only one of the same characters.
This book does not deal with Graces as much. (In fact, hardly at all.) But the monsters in this book are what make the story unique.
The story starts a little slow, but it is still entertaining. Once again, Kristin Cashore created a likable main character. However, in both Fire and Graceling, the female characters are opposed to marriage and having children. That was rather bothersome. But overall, this book was fantastic!
Audience 14+