A review by whiteraven191
The Fire Artist by Daisy Whitney
2.0
The world-building in this book is stupid as hell. These magic shows (which sound more like glorified Cirque de Soleil shows than anything) have become more popular than the entire sports industry? To the point that Yankee Stadium is primarily used for magic shows and when it is used for baseball, most of the seats go unused? No way. That's not believable at all.
And then there was the romance. At first I thought it was actually going to do something clever and subvert the whole "We've only known each other for a few days, but we're totally in true love with each other!" thing a lot of YA falls victim to. The MC gives herself up so that her love-interest doesn't have to be a granter anymore, and then he acts all "Ha ha! I was just using you to escape, dumbass." But then it turns out it was just a ruse to fool the higher-ups so he could find her again and free her. Because they really were in true love after like a week of knowing each other. Gag. Also, the romance starts when she's his Master and he can't really say no to what she wants. So it's not even an entirely consensual relationship. I don't know why the novel went out of its way to point out the consent issues and then didn't bother doing anything about them.
The reason I'm giving this two stars instead of one star is that I actually genuinely liked the section where the MC was working as a granter. It was fascinating seeing what people wished for and what they had to give up for it. If the author wrote another book, or even just a short story, with a granter as the main character I'd happily read it.
And then there was the romance. At first I thought it was actually going to do something clever and subvert the whole "We've only known each other for a few days, but we're totally in true love with each other!" thing a lot of YA falls victim to. The MC gives herself up so that her love-interest doesn't have to be a granter anymore, and then he acts all "Ha ha! I was just using you to escape, dumbass." But then it turns out it was just a ruse to fool the higher-ups so he could find her again and free her. Because they really were in true love after like a week of knowing each other. Gag. Also, the romance starts when she's his Master and he can't really say no to what she wants. So it's not even an entirely consensual relationship. I don't know why the novel went out of its way to point out the consent issues and then didn't bother doing anything about them.
The reason I'm giving this two stars instead of one star is that I actually genuinely liked the section where the MC was working as a granter. It was fascinating seeing what people wished for and what they had to give up for it. If the author wrote another book, or even just a short story, with a granter as the main character I'd happily read it.