TITLE: Wildefire (Wildefire 01)
AUTHOR: Karsten Knight
GENRE: Paranormal, YA
PUBLISHED: 7/26/2011
RATING: ★★★☆☆
PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon / Barnes&Noble
MOBILISM LINK: Mobilism
Review: This is a difficult book to review. For starters, while I may read more paranormal/vamp/werewolf books than other reviewers, I still have preferences. I tend to shy away from the fallen angels, the reincarnated gods, and the erotic for the sake of erotic types of paranormal novels. Wildefire is an "reincarnated gods" type of story. I decided to give it a try anyway after a review was requested. The good news is that I didn't have a problem with the themes in Wildefire, the bad news is that the review is still difficult.
Wildefire is the debut novel from a rather interesting young author. A young male author. This is the first difficulty as he writes from a female protagonist's point of view. Some readers feel he was successful in this, some feel he failed, and some take exception to the use of the word p***y as an expletive by characters in the book. I feel he was somewhat successful, but I have never personally experienced a teenage female's POV either.
The next issue is that the story takes some time to build up steam, and it starts off with several rather shocking violent acts. It is worth persevering with the story, if it's in any fashion your cup of tea, to get to the meatier parts. The violence is another story. Officially this is a YA novel. I have no problem with enjoying a YA novel if I otherwise like the writing. The violence and gore is a little heavy duty for a YA novel in my opinion. Some readers have found the violence to be too much, some not, and partly the divisiveness was because some of it is perpetrated by the protagonist. There is the additional consideration, an important one to me, that these are reincarnated gods, jealous and violent at times, that we are dealing with. Some of the myths that involve them do have the gods taking out their wrath and jealousy on the other woman rather than the cheating man - as our young protagonist does at the beginning of the book.
I can only wonder if this book would have been better written as an adult Urban Fantasy instead. As it stands though, I do see it as fitting for the more mature YA reader.
A big consideration with this novel is the originality. While there have been a lot of YA paranormal titles released, there are no similar novels where we are talking about a reincarnated Polynesian volcano goddess! On top of this, the author combines gods and goddesses from other mythologies rather than just sticking with Polynesia. He does it well but fails to provide as much general and specific background as you might hope. Once again - two steps forward and one step back...
Some of the important questions that arise during the story are answered, some not, and some you're still waiting to find out who was telling the truth by the end of the novel. The novel does set you up for the next book in a series, but it doesn't do so by leaving you in the middle of a climatic event as some recent novels have done. There is a shocker at the end, but to me it doesn't ruin the completeness of the part of the story that we've visited so far. Not that you still aren't left with a lot of questions...
The next book is Embers and Echoes (Wildefire 02,) and it came out on 8/28./2012.
The big questions - did I enjoy Wildefire? Yes I did. I wasn't sure if I would, but I did. I found it neither as wonderful as some of the goodread's reviewers did, nor as awful as others. I found some of the reviews I glanced thru puzzling. A number of people called the school official in the beginning of the book the principal, but he actually wasn't.
The crowd shuffled to the side, letting Vice Principal Davis through to the combat zone. Mr. Davis pushed past Reggie Butler and, with no regard for where he was stepping, tripped right over Rich.
The vice principal caught himself just before he face-planted.
Also a number of reviewers stated Ashline didn't go after the cheating boyfriend, that she only got violent with the girl in question.
Momentarily girded with courage, Rich turned and smirked at Reggie Butler, co-captain of the tennis team.
“If only she’d been this passionate when we were dating.”
One second Ashline was standing in the middle of the circle. The next second Rich was curled in the fetal position on the ground, howling in pain, holding his tennis bag in front of him like a shield to prevent further irrepa-rable injury to his groin.
Those curiosities aside, I look at this book like a flawed gem - if you can overlook the large flaws in the gemstone you can see the beauty of the story shining forth.
I am crossing my fingers to see how the second book plays out.
Would I recommend it to others? Yes I would. This does come with the qualifier that you are willing to read a YA novel about a reincarnated Polynesian volcano goddess of course!
