Fire!

I really enjoyed Graceling by Kristin Cashore, but for me Fire blew it away. 

(btw: this is not the cover version of the book that I read, but I love this one a million red m&m's so that's why I'm posting it)

Fire, the titled character, is a Monster.  A human of such incredible beauty that people are drawn to her like moths to a flame, her unnatural beauty also gives her the ability to enter most peoples minds and change what she likes (think of the dad in Firestarter with his ability to "push" and then times it by about a billion).  Fire's dad had been a terrible Monster, using his powers to hurt, kill and wreak havoc. Fire is the opposite, she only uses her powers to protect herself from death, and oh, yeah, a LOT of people want to kill her.  There's the Monster equivalent of every beast and insect and they all like to snack on Fire, lots of people who hated her father want her dead, and some of those drawn to her beauty would hurt her if given the chance.  Even her closest friend Archer, who loves and understands her completely, is possessive of her beauty.  They are kind of friends with benefits, which struck me as pretty shocking for a teen book, but then I remembered that I'd read the Gossip Girl series, and Fire reads a hell of more like Little House on the Prairie than a GG book.

So of course, Fire's just living her life, dodging arrows (sometimes unsuccessfully) from mysteriously foggy minded archers, when the imminent war in her country is brought to her doorstep.  There's the young, hot King Nash and his broody dark (and hot) brother, Prince Brigan.  There's also a horribly evil Graceling (which is how the two books kind of tie together).

Why did I love Fire better than Graceling?  I read someone's review where they described the book Fire as almost an epic and I agree.  I went through a lot with the characters of Fire, it's just one of those books I really connected to.  You don't need to have read Graceling to enjoy Fire, it's a novel that can stand on it's own two, brilliantly beautiful, feet. 

Fire gets a Midnight Book Rating of Midnight.  Loved it, want to have a million of it's babies.