Pretty Monster

Sorry about the lack of post yesterday.  Everything came crashing down at once and I had to spend the day in bed thinking unpainful thoughts.  Plus side is I finished up the book I am rambling about today so there is always that :-).  On with the rambling.

I had reread Graceling in preparation for reading Bitterblue knowing it was more or less a direct sequel.  I had not intended to reread Fire right away as there was not to much of a connection between it and Graceling. However after rambling about Graceling I decided that for Bitterblue to make sense I should go ahead and ramble about Fire first.  Ok I know that was all very confusing, but by the time I'm done rambling about all three books it should hopefully make some sort of sense.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

We start our story with a prologue about a man and his strange son who live in Monsea of the Seven Kingdoms.  The young boys eyes change colors settling into gray and red marking him as a Graceling.  Larch, the boys father does not want him to be taken by the king, and decides to run and hide with the boy.  The odd thing is that Larch is continually in a fog, doing whatever it is the young boy wants him to do.  The child convinces his father to give him most of the food and sacrifice his comfort and well being to protect him.  The two end up stumbling through hidden tunnels in the great mountains and come out the other side in the Dells, a country that is more advanced then the one they came from.  Here the boy sets up a small reign of terror, constantly recruiting weak minded people to help take care of him and further his goals.  His father, after too much time in the brain fog his son produces, has a moment of clarity and realizes that his sons

Grace is essentially mind control.  The boy kills his father for the discovery and taking the name Leck, continues his pursuit of obtaining greatness.  This in general is our only link to the Seven Kingdoms and the first book.  Moving on to the main story we meet Fire.  Fire is a monster, which is to say she is a special type of being that only exists in the Dells.  A monster is a fantastic version of a normal being, they are characterized by intense, unusual coloring, possessing powers of mind control, and an insatiable hunger for other monster blood.  Every type of living being has monster versions of it, cats, dogs, insects, rabbits, horses, and humans.  At this point in time Fire is the last human monster in existence.  She possess a face and body that drive people to distraction with longing, and when she lets her hair (which has glorious shades of pink, orange, red and gold in it) be seen few living creatures human or otherwise can resist her.  She is the daughter of Cansrel, a male human monster who used his influence to bring the former king Nax and his kingdom to the brink of ruin.  Both the king and his monster advisor have died, leaving the kingdom in the hands of the young king Nash, his spy advisers his brother Galen and sister Clara, and the military in command of his youngest brother Brigan.  The country is holding together and preparing for a war against two lords  Mydogg to the north and Gentian to the south.  Sheltered from all this by distance, Fire lives near her best friend and sometimes lover Archer and his father, the former military advisor Brocker.  Archer and Fire have an unequal relationship.  Fire lover Archer as a best friend, and respects his incredible skill with the bow.  Archer is desperately in love with fire and jealously guards her, to the point of obsessiveness, going as far as to fire on of her guards because she like the color of his hair.  Fire puts up with the excursiveness of Archers jealousy and love, in part because he is one of the few friends she has that is not wholly controlled by her appearance.  Fire and Archer travel to the

Queen mothers fort and meet the king Nash (who behaves horribly in the presence of Fire) and Brigan who is incredibly cold towards her.  Fire risks herself to distract a huge group of monster raptors, earning some trust and respect from Brigan and his army.  Brigan asks Fire to come to the capital city to try and use her mental powers to get some information from some prisoners he has.  She agrees, much to the displeasure of Archer, who cannot go with her until he has finished taking care of his estates.  Fire is assigned a guard and is escorted to the city.  Along the way she discovers many things, her love and skill at music helps her cope with things, her guard, in particular Musa and Mila are willing to also be her friends, and Brigan is much kinder then she ever imagined.  At the palace king Nash declares himself in love with Fire and she forbids him from being in the same room as her until he can learn to guard his mind.  She makes friends with Garen and Clara and helps them try and infiltrate the minds of the prisoners.  Fire also meets Hannah, Brigans young daughter with whom she bonds with quit nicely.  Archer arrives for a visit and Fire tells him that they can no longer be lovers, that she does not love him the same way he loves her and that it is ruining their friendship.  In retaliation Archer (who is a lady's man at the best of times) sleeps with both Clara and the young guard Mila, impregnating them both.  Furious with her friend the two of them fight and Archer decides to leave and search out a mysterious archer who has what Fire describes as a "foggy brain" that is wreaking havoc in the country.  With two of her friends pregnant, and bonding with the young Hannah, Fire's resolve to never have children starts to weaken.  Fire does not want to have children,
because a monster will always bear a monster, no matter who the mother or father is.  She does not want to bring a person into the world who can be so destructive as her father was.  She ends up taking a medicine that will leave her barren, ensuring she will never succumb to her temptations.  The group eventually stumbles upon a plot and a plan is formed during a party to try and assassinate a few key players.  They succeed in killing Gentian and his son (the real brains), but not before they learn that they are actually allied with Mydogg and his sister.  Fire is kidnapped and taken north.  She learns that her kidnapper is none other then Leck, the boy who controls people with his words.  He wants Fire to join him and between the two of them they can take over the kingdom by using the rulers as puppets.  Fire of course rejects his proposal and makes good her escape.  While escaping she finds the body of Archer, who was killed by Jod, the foggy brained archer that he set out to find.  Out of her mind with grief she stumbles back (with the help of a wild river horse) causing Leck to fall down a crack in the mountain at some point.  She eventually makes it back to the fortress where her friends help take care of her.  She slowly heals in body, but her mind remains pretty shattered over losing her friend, and the potential loss of her friends to war.  It is especially difficult with Brigan, as she loves him so much, but he is always in danger.  She starts helping in the hospital, easing the pain of injured and dying soldiers, and subsequently helping herself as well.  In the end after a fierce battle and some plots gone awry king Nash wins the war and a sort of peace settles over the kingdom.  Fire and Brigan end up together, making a little family along with his daughter Hannah.  King Nash rules much better then his father ever did, and everybody pitches in to help raise the two children born to Archer after his death.  There is also a sub story of how Brocker had an affair with the Queen, and King Nax shattered his legs and sent Jod to rape his wife in revenge and that is how Archer was conceived.  Brigan was the result of the affair between Brocker and the Queen.  It is all very twisty and a bit convoluted.

Whew, on to my impressions and arbitary thoughts about this book.  I liked it better then Graceling and I liked that book alot.  I think I like the country of Dells better than I like the Seven Kingdoms and that has a lot to do with it, world building has always been a big part of stories for me.  A lot of people found this book to be more violent and distasteful than Graceling, while others liked it much more.  I agree that this book got pretty dark in places, and the whole Archer/Brigan being the result of affairs and rapes was not only a bit uncomfortable, but it seemed unnecessary as well.  I think the author put it in to a)illustrate just how twisted Cansrel had made Nax and b) how even good people (like Brocker) can do bad things.  I just did not find it  necessary and even a bit distracting.  I like the character of Fire for the most part.  She is capable of taking care of herself, yet constantly finds her self surrounded by people who desperately want to protect her.  I

find her emotional state to be fairly believable, especially for a 17/18 year old.  She spends a bit to much time angsting about things, but is called out on it most of the time.  I got frustrated when she let Archer bully her, but even that at least made sense.  He was her only real friend and she did not want to lose that, she understood that even though it did not make it right, he did his bullying out of love, and never ever ever tried to hurt her.  I liked that she eventually stood up to him, growing up and realizing that it was harmful to allow him to continue to try and run her life.  After reading  Bitterblue I can see how much more this story ties in to the overall "long story" and actually kind of like that while it is tied to the first and third book, it is also it's own story, not dependent on any other.  I loved the concept of monsters and think that between this and the Graceling concept you could probably write a thousand stories.  I also like how Fire has to come to terms with her "beauty", at one point she is frustrated that even with all of the scars and mud and dirt and whatnot, people still find her physically irresistible, she is not capable of not being beautiful.  She even startles herself with her beauty.  She is not vain about it, trying to dampen it down every chance she gets (unlike her father who reveled in it), but to no avail.  This beauty is portrayed as dangerous, not only to others, but to herself as it makes her a target. The best part though is that it is not limited to humans, other monster animals are attracted to her, and normal humans are attracted to other non-human monsters, if your not careful even a hairy tarantula can entrance you if it is monster version.  Over all this book is definitely a bit darker than the first one, but also a fairly realistic one (as much a fantasy book can get).  There are frustrating parts, and roll you eyes parts, and uncomfortable parts, but even on the reread I found it a very intriguing, well written, worth the time book. Between this book and Graceling it sets us up perfectly for the next book.  I give it 8 out 10 monster feathers.