Review: Wildefire by Karsten Knight

Wildefire
Author: Karsten Knight
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: July 26, 2011
Genre: YA
Pages: 400
Source: Simon & Schuster
Format: eBook
Rating: I really liked it. The story was unique and a breath of fresh air in the YA genre.

Every flame begins with a spark.
Ashline Wilde is having a rough sophomore year. She’s struggling to find her place as the only Polynesian girl in school, her boyfriend just cheated on her, and now her runaway sister, Eve, has decided to barge back into her life. When Eve’s violent behavior escalates and she does the unthinkable, Ash transfers to a remote private school nestled in California’s redwoods, hoping to put the tragedy behind her. But her fresh start at Blackwood Academy doesn’t go as planned. Just as Ash is beginning to enjoy the perks of her new school—being captain of the tennis team, a steamy romance with a hot, local park ranger—Ash discovers that a group of gods and goddesses have mysteriously enrolled at Blackwood…and she’s one of them. To make matters worse, Eve has resurfaced to haunt Ash, and she’s got some strange abilities of her own. With a war between the gods looming over campus, Ash must master the new fire smoldering within before she clashes with her sister one more time… And when warm and cold fronts collide, there’s guaranteed to be a storm

 
 
 

Finally a book that doesn’t fit the YA cookie cutter mold. Now don’t get me wrong, I love YA but it can get repetitive and tiresome real fast. Wildefire however didn’t have a self-conscious heroine or a mysterious guy that may or may not be into the main character. What it did have was kick-ass gods and goddesses and a park ranger. Now maybe I am biased because I work at a national park, but I liked that the guy candy in this book wasn’t a fellow student but a park ranger. With that being said though, I think my favorite character was Raja. She starts off snooty and miss high almighty but then as the book progresses and she learns that she is a goddess, you see her start to warm up and interact with the other characters and become apart of their circle.

Another thing that I liked about this book was that the author did his homework. He was pulling out gods that I had never heard of, so of course I Wikipedia’d them to get a little bit more background information. After reading the book I felt like I had learned something that I didn’t know before about the other cultures deities.

I feel like the fighting scenes were appropriate. You have to remember that they are not typical teenagers, they are gods reincarnated. They should be worshiped, revered and people should bend to their every whim… but they don’t because to the rest of the world they are just your average teenager. So of course when crazy Eve doesn’t get her way she loses the tiny bit of self composure she has and does some crazy insane sh*t. I had never heard of a level headed, “okay lets think this through” god who when presented with an obstacle didn’t go bat sh*t crazy and want to rain their wrath down upon the poor unsuspecting person. Okay now that I say that I am sure that there is one out there. Maybe if Knight writes a sequel he will add that one into the story and prove me wrong. Either way, all I am saying is that I found the fighting and killing to be up to par with what I would expect from a deity.

I had a few questions left unanswered once the book ended, so I am hoping that there is a sequel to the story. I won’t give anything away but the ending is sort of a “what just happened?!”

Some of the classmates from school are out at the bar and one of the girls, Lily, asks “If a guy compares you to a baked good as you’re walking out of the bathroom, should you be flattered or insulted?” To which Rolfe responds with “Depends on whether or not you want to climb into his oven.”
Don’t ask me why out of the entire book I chose this but it was so random and witty, I instantly bookmarked it for later. I really hope that in the future one of my girlfriends ask me this same question so that I can shoot this one liner at them. HaHa