Firelight (Firelight, #1)

by Sophie Jordan

When sixteen-year-old Jacinda, who can change into a dragon, is forced to move away from her community of shapeshifters and start a more normal life, she falls in love with a boy who proves to be her most dangerous enemy.

• ISBN10: 0061935085
• ISBN13: 9780061935084
• Publish Date: 7 September 2010
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperCollins Childrens Book Group
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

Originally posted on Miss Book Reviews.

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I wanted to read this book because I’ve never read a book about dragons before and it sounded really interesting. I’m not sure what I expected but this was a little different to my expectations, whatever those were.

The Story
This story was interesting, it had so many cool elements that I liked. But I was disappointed that the plot line was practically the romance. I do find books a little bit boring when the romance takes the lead in the story. There was the story with the Draki and Jacinda trying to find a way of keeping her Draki alive without being selfish to her sister, Tamra, and her mother. But it wasn’t a strong enough plot line to drive the book in my opinion. The romance took over.
So I was pretty disappointed to find that this is only a love story, especially with all the cool Draki things going on.

The Draki
I loved the whole idea of the Draki! I thought it was so interesting and so cool! The fact that they aren’t dragons themselves but are descended from dragons is how the whole idea works I think. They ‘manifest’ into their original forms whenever their emotions are heightened and whenever they are scared.
I love how specific their strengths and weaknesses were. Draki need living open space. Living earth, mountains, fresh air. They need this to survive, otherwise their draki dies and they become a normal human.
The Draki are hunted, the hunters are one of their enemies that hunt them for fun and for their hide’s.

The Romance
The romance is practically insta-love! Man was I disappointed. Jacinda falls all over Will before she’s even had a proper conversation with him. He declares to her that he likes her and that she must be his before they’ve really spent any time with each other. I don’t think those feelings had enough time to develop to get to that point when this happens.
Yeah I get that they are drawn to each other but I found myself sighing and rolling my eyes in a bad way whenever Jacinda thought of Will. Then he became her every thought and the story suddenly got a little boring, up until the action picked up.

The Writing
The writing was so detailed when it came to Jacinda manifesting, I loved that we got all of the information, it made me feel like I knew exactly what she was feeling and exactly what it felt like to manifest. I was never tripping over words or having to re-read to understand what was going on which is great.

Overall, I did enjoy reading this book. It was interesting and fun, even though I was disappointed for parts and I knew what was going to happen at the end, I will be picking up the next book to see what Jacinda ends up doing!

Firelight is an intriguing read that kept me wanting to read more when it came to the Draki. The Draki are such interesting creatures and Jordan has done a nice job of keeping my interest piqued.

If you liked Twilight then I think you could enjoy this book!

Miss J
x

3.5
Overall I liked this book. The plot was and world building were really good! I really liked the premise! Though, if your expecting action (like i was) you might be disappointed. This is a romance novel, not really any action, but still good. However, I would've given it more stars if it wasn't for the main character. There were some instances where I just kinda wanted to smack her! she had a lot of resentment and was just kinda annoying! even though I kinda understood where she was coming from, it was still hard to relate to her. I guess i'm not one of those "teen angst, my parents don't care bout me" kinda gal. But i'm looking forward to the second book. I hope there's more action (and more Cassian :D)!!

[Jo]

Marked as special at an early age, Jacinda knows her every move is watched. She longs for the freedom to make her own choices, but when she breaks the 'no flying' rule, she nearly pays with her life. Until a beautiful stranger saves her. A stranger who was sent to hunt those like her. For Jacinda is a draki, a descendant of dragons whose greatest defence is her secret ability to shift into human form. And her rare ability to breathe fire makes her desirable, and important, to the survival of the draki. Forced to flee into the mortal world with her family, Jacinda struggles to adapt to her new surroundings. There she meets gorgeous, elusive Will who stirs her inner draki to life. Although she is irresistibly drawn to him, Jacinda knows Will's dark secret: he and his family are hunters. She should avoid him at all costs. But her inner draki is slipping away, and if it dies she will be left as a human forever. She'll do anything to prevent that. Even if it means getting closer to her most dangerous enemy. From Amazon UK

Over the last few months, I have had a growing interesting in weres/shifters - I still love my vamps, but the way authors used or created mythology for different shifters was becoming increasingly more fascinating to me. Seeing Firelight was about Draki, people who can shift - or manifest in this case - into creatures descended from dragons, something so different, as soon as I heard about it, I knew I had to read it. I'm so glad I did!

The mythology of the Draki is just so interesting! The different types, the different abilities they have, how they live, it's just fascinating. Unfortunately, due to Jacinda almost getting herself killed, she leaves her Pride with her mother and sister pretty early on in the story, meaning that we don't get to see a lot of life in the Pride. We only get what we're told by Jacinda, but she's preoccupied with some boy most of the time, so we don't get much of it. We know Jacinda is a firebreather, an almost extinct ability, and because of this her Pride wants to control her. Otherwise, as a group of creatures, we don't find out a whole lot about them.

The romance is pretty awesome though. It does get pretty steamy in some places. Firelight is definitely a paranormal romance. Though some other YA novels may be classed as pararnormal romance, if there are issues besides the romance that have a large impact on the story, I consider them to be urban fantasy. With Firelight, the other issues that are brought up don't really have much page time, the romance being the main focus. I think in this way, Firelight is specifically the first book in a series; it builds the romance so that's solid enough for the audience, and in the next book we'll see more of the issues.

There were a few issues that I had with this book, though. Jacinda dithered too much about Will. You can understand her being cautious, but she chopped and changed her mind so often. "I should stay away from Will because he hunts Draki. I should be near Will because he wakes my Draki. But I have to stay away from him because I can't control my manifest when I'm near him. But I can gain information from him about other Draki..." On and on so that it semms not a huge amount actually happens, as it's mostly her internal conflict, with a few almost somethings. Also, I couldn't count the number of times Will looked at Jacinda intensely and hungrily. It seems he has very few facial expressions. It got a little annoying.

Saying all that, I did enjoy the story. It's not the best I've ever read, no, but I still thought it was pretty good. I'm really looking forward to reading the sequel, and finding out what happens next, because, god, what a cliff hanger! Well worth a read, I really recommend it.

From Once Upon a Bookcase - YA book blog