Firekeeper's Daughter

by Angeline Boulley

[lessthelonely]

4/5 stars.

tl;dr: While the book has been mismarketed as a thriller when it should've just been labelled a YA mystery drama, the plot and themes pack both a punch and have some staying power, even when brought down by some subplots that get solved off-page or a romance that has its ups and downs.

Let's talk about I decided to read this book because I've interacted with the translator for the Portuguese edition of it in Portugal. Notice I didn't say I'm friends with the translator, I merely said I've interacted with them.

Anyways, what did I think of Firekeeper's Daughter? I think it's been incredibly mismarketed as a thriller. I would love it if Thriller was only used for books that are fast paced. I'm not saying this book was slow, but it was slower than you'd expect a book with almost 500 pages to be. While the writing is sharp and definitely never boring, what's happening tends to be a little bit boring, especially right after the inciting incident - which, mind you, only happens at around page 100.

I must admit, having a flashforward was fun! I wish it had been a little bigger, maybe even with a few more jumps, which is a narrative structure I love and have written in. My point here is that for a standalone book, I believe the inciting incident could've come a little bit earlier. I'm not saying to start there, but a little bit more would've been a bit more. While this book is good at creating a realistic depiction of every day life, I feel this works against it at time because you spend a lot of time with setups which don't really get to a satisfying end point to the point they happen off-page.

Other thoughts: I found this crass for a YA. Look at me, all Virgin Mary, never read swearwords in his life! You usually don't get as much swearing in YA, and there were passages I found especially jarring because they were very much explicit. Not TOO explicit, but more than I expected from a YA book. I wouldn't be surprised if this was marketed as a YA because of that trend of women-written books just ending up as YA (think: The Poppy War, These Violent Delights, etc).

I would call this book a mystery with a heavy focus on romance. The plot itself seemed quite sidetracked for the main relationship, and while there were some choices I was like... DAMN. I am mainly kind of frustrated with the ending as, after spending so much time with the two characters, it was hard to see how they ended. At the same time, I would like to say there were some choices that didn't feel as organic as they should: the book starts with an incredibly forward approach to their relationship, cuts it off, only to set it up again by outside influence, which is easy to write (I've done it) but not so much to read.

Finally: the first time there was a red flag very explicitly being raised in-book, I figured out the ending. The reveal and aftermath were very much quite nicely written and as this is a standalone novel, this is when tension can REALLY be driven up to the maximum because you truly don't know who's going to live and who's going to die. It was great.

All and all, I believe this is a worthwhile read. My main points would be: a bit more lead-up into romance, a more present plot (you can introduce things that make plot slow down, but completely side-tracking it isn't fun), more contained subplots (if it's introduced, it should pack a punch... very rarely is the best choice to make something happen off-page).