The Fire Artist by Daisy WhitneyPublished by: Bloomsbury USA Childrens on October 14, 2014
Genre: Fantasy, Magic
Pages: 288
Source: ARC From Publisher, BookExpo America
Book Details
Rating: ★★★
Aria is an elemental artist—she creates fire from her hands. But her power is not natural. She steals it from lightning. It’s dangerous and illegal in her world. When she’s recruited to perform, she seizes the chance to get away from her family. But her power is fading too fast to keep stealing from the sky. She has no choice but to turn to a Granter—a modern day genie. She gets one wish at an extremely high price. Aria’s willing to take a chance, but then she falls in love with the Granter . . . and he wants his freedom. Aria must decide what she’s willing to bargain and how much her own heart, body, and soul are worth.
In a world where the sport of elemental powers is the most popular form of entertainment, readers will be swept away by a romance with stakes higher than life and death.
I started out LOVING The Fire Artist. The idea of elemental magic as a performance art—almost like a sport actually—was very interesting. Then you bring Genies into the mix and it’s almost like baseball and steroids.
Then an abuse element was introduced. Aria’s father tried to force her to become a fire artist by burning her and trying to convince her that it didn’t really hurt. Obviously that’s horrible, but I thought it was a really unique and interesting way to introduce abuse. He never hit her, but he was so desperate to have a family full of elemental artists that he tried to force her to become a fire artist. Very interesting!
But then when she’s recruited, things went downhill for me. The whole fire artist thing was put on the back burner while the romance dominated.. and the romance was pretty insta-lovey. View Spoiler »
I think I just thought the book would be a lot more epic than it ended up being. In fact some of it was just pretty silly View Spoiler » . The whole thing came down to a half-baked romance. It would have been cooler if there was some kind of epic, elemental war.
Overall it was okay, but I think it could have been a lot better, especially since it started out so great!
On another note, the synopsis pretty much sums up 90% of the whole story, which is why I put some of it in spoiler tags. Luckily I didn’t read it right before I read the book, so it wasn’t totally ruined for me. But keep that in mind if you’re considering picking this up.
The Verdict
I hate it when a blurb tells the whole story. I don’t think I’m going to read this one either. I love elemental powers and stuff but still…
I also hate spoilers. It take all the fun away.
I don’t think I’m reading this one either.
I know! It makes the book so much less enjoyable :/
Thanks for the warning about the spoilers in the synopsis. I often don’t read the synopsis right before I read a book anyway, but now I’ll know for sure to skip this one!