Book Review of Firelight by Sophie Jordan

Title: Firelight

Author: Sophie Jordan

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.com

My Review: I have been trying very hard to read my books in order of their release date, but I saw the trailer for this book the other day online and I knew I was not going to be able to wait any longer for this one.  Plus, I am a total sucker for anything dragon, it is my biggest weakness.  If you put a book in my hand and just say “dragon”  I am going to read it.  I have no idea why, but they are fascinating to me.  I have loved them since I was little and I bought this beautiful  musical snow globe with a dragon inside.  I know that sounds weird, but it is really sweet, it plays the song from Chariots of Fire, I don’t know the name of the song but I love it.  Anyways, I think I you get my point…dragon=awesome!

Just so you know, I am not spoiling anything by telling you about the dragons in this book because it is in the summary on the back cover, so no worries.  Actually, they are not really dragons, just descendants of them.  The main character, Jacinda, lives with her “pride”  in the mountains, tucked away from prying eyes.  Mainly humans, who hunt her kind for sport and use her kind for their own benefit.  Jacinda’s people are called draki, they can appear to be human, but are actually capable of taking on dragon features and abilities.  Jacinda can breath fire…seriously, how cool is that?  I know a couple of times that might have come in handy.  For Jacinda though, this is not necessarily the best thing, because fire breathers are very rare and therefore she is rare.  The pride does not want to lose her and so her life is pretty much picked out for her and she does not like being contained.

Her family ends up leaving the pride and fleeing to the desert.  When Jacinda enters school, she has a lot of problems ahead of her.  The biggest one’s named Will.  She is drawn to him, but she is also having a hard time hiding what she is in front of him which, of course, is not good.  I can hear you now saying “wait  drawn to someone mysteriously” not again, I have heard this before and I don’t like it!  There is a reason for her initial reaction to him, I don’t want to spoil it because I think it is a good moment and you should experience that yourself, but there is a reason I promise.   Also, once you get to the climax of the book there are a couple of things reveled that I think have a lot to do with their attraction.  Of course I am speculating right now, but I promise you, she is not the weak heroine drawn to some mysterious guy we know nothing about and is bad for her.  I think once you read it you will see what I mean and agree with me.

As for how much I liked the book?  Well, I started reading this book at 5:30 pm and I am sitting here at 11:00 pm (same day) writing up the review.  Umm, I think I loved it!  It was exhilarating!   It also had a unique mythology in a genre filled with the same old creatures, time and time again.  This standout novel will keep you entranced from start to finish and you will be sad to see it end.  I know I was, I can’t wait for the next book to come out so I can see what Jacinda is up to next

Language Love:

The water is still and smooth.  Polished glass.  Not a ripple of wind disturbs the dark surface.  Low-rising mist drifts drifts off liquid mountains floating against a purple-bruised sky.

I love reflections, they are one of my favorite things to look at and take pictures of.  This description seems to capture that beauty and makes it easy for me to visualize this scene.  It is actually one of the first lines in the book and after I read it I knew I was going to like this book!

FTC:  I received this ARC from the publisher.