Firelight by Sophie Jordan - Rica's Review

Title: Firelight

Author: Sophie Jordan

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Target Audience: Teen Girls

Number of Pages: ARC - 323 pages

Release Date: September 7, 2010

With her rare ability to breathe fire, Jacinda is special even among the draki—the descendants of dragons who can shift between human and dragon forms. But when Jacinda’s rebelliousness leads her family to flee into the human world, she struggles to adapt, even as her draki spirit fades. The one thing that revives it is Will, whose family hunts her kind. Jacinda can’t resist getting closer to him, even though she knows she’s risking not only her life but the draki’s most closely guarded secret. -Summary from Goodreads

My expectations for this novel were pretty similar to my thoughts of other paranormal romances: as if by fate, a boy and a girl meet, fair amounts of swooning, they fall in love, paranormal aspects prevent their relationship from flourishing, they conquer it together, everything works out, and then thats the end. Knowing this, I still grasped at the faint hope that this book would bring something new and more satisfying. I was relieved from the surge of vampires and werewolves and I hoped reading about dragons would be a refreshing change and just perhaps obliterate my bias on paranormal romances.

My hopes were shot down to a blunder. Personally, this book was the quintessence of ordinary, sprinkled with a few more aspects to frown upon. The story starts with Jacinda in her draki dragon form, cornered by a brutally handsome hunter boy.The two were alone, and the cave was alive with sparks when their touches met. Jacinda knew she could never forget the boy who betrayed his dragon hunting family to spare her life. When Jacinda left her dragon pack, known as a pride, she and her family relocated to a small town in the desert. Jacinda and her twin sister Tamra enrolled into high school. On their first day, as unrealistic as it may be, Jacinda saw the boy hunter who spared her life, Will. I knew this meeting was inevitable, but the pure odds of this happening were so far off, that frustration still managed to tug at me.

Will and Jacinda's relationship was utterly flat and could only be a fictional romance. Their love affair was almost instantaneous. It was as if their relationship had been in fast-forward while I was still at play, unable to be swept into their rhythm. Admittedly, I am usually a sucker for male lead heroes in books, but Will's character was so unrelatable to real-life heroes, that it was hard for me to feel a connection to him. Jacinda was probably the best character out of the lot. She was pretty well developed with a strong, brave, and slightly rebellious personality. She turned out pretty like-able. It was depressing to watch her struggle with her family and surroundings, but it was nice to see her inner draki come to life when in the presence of Will.

Apart from Jacinda, I couldn't care for the other roles any less. Tamra and Jacinda's mother particularly pushed my buttons. The pair were unbelievably selfish. Tamra was born without the ability to manifest, or in other words, morph into draki form. Like Filch for example, born into a wizarding family with no wizarding powers; a squib in the world of Harry Potter. Anyway, due to this stroke of unluckiness, Tamra had never fit in well in the pride, and was always quietly jealous of Jacinda who was the prized jewel in the pack. Unlike Tamra, Jacinda's mother was able to manifest, but she too didn't feel like she fit in with the other dragons. While Jacinda and her draki are one, Jacinda's mom didn't feel such a bond with her draki. A piece of soul, trapped in a reluctant body. So, Tamra and their mom, put their own wishes ahead of Jacinda's, and moved to a desert in hopes Jacinda's draki would wither and die. Throughout the whole novel, the duo consistently ignore Jacinda's pleads and complaints, and instead feeds her with phrases like, "it's for your own good" and so on. Their obtuse minds made them annoying to read about.

It followed the basic plot line I mapped out in the first paragraph, up until the ending. The ending was abrupt, rushed, and as unsatisfactory as getting only a pair of socks for Christmas. I'll put it this way. This book was like a struggling hike up a steep mountain. The trek up the side was more or less uninteresting and at times I did think about giving up, yet my eyes were set on the climax, the most exciting and rewarding part of the journey. Then without warning, it's as if I was kicked down the mountain in an accelerated tumble. The climax was basically the ending of the book. The ending was a huge cliffhanger, one that posed a lot of unanswered questions, one that was conducted poorly. Actually, after reading the ending, I seriously thought that the ARC I read was unfinished somehow. I couldn't believe it was the ending. It was so sudden that I thought a chunk of the ending must've fallen out or something. Normally, cliffhangers make me extremely eager to read the sequel, but in this case, the ending was so shockingly annoying, that all curiosity was sucked out of me.

I really had hopes for this book. Draki were new to me, alluring even. I wanted to know so much more about them. Jordan lacked information about them, the bits that I craved most. The one aspect that was new to YA bookshelves, the author didn't describe as much. Instead, this book was stuffed with a cheesy relationship that failed to touch my heart. I don't doubt that other teen girls will be thrilled with this Twilight-esque novel, this one just didn't impress me. There have been mixed reviews on this novel, and I believe that it does some-what deserve to be checked out. I would probably read the sequel, just for the sake of it and in hope that it would improve.

Cover: 2/5- I'm not the biggest fan of the cover. The close-up girl doesn't appeal to me. Personally, I think it gives it a bit of a more tacky look. Though I like the fire-y gold colors, this cover isn't special from other ones on the shelves.

Rating:

2 Hoots

To view Okapi's review of Firelight, CLICK HERE