Fire, a review

My first review this year and the first book I have read on my TBR pile reading challenge list!

Fire by Sara B. Elfgren and Mats Strandberg

Fire is part two of the circle series.
It is written by two Swedish authors, Sara B. Elfgren and Mats Strandberg. I loved the setting in a little town in Sweden en all the references to Stockholm and the Swedish names.

Fire is written in a real and down to earth kind of way. With books about witches it can be a bit harry pottery (as I like to call it), but this was not the case with Fire.
It is about 6 teenage girls and one boy that found out they were witches in the first book.  They are called the chosen ones. Since than they had to battle two deaths among them ,demons, the council that watches every move they make, boys, friendships but above all being a teen. It is very refreshing to see a young adult that is not about a girl that falls head over heals in love with a boy. Also the fact that these five girls are not friends, is new and makes an interesting read.

You get to know all five of the girls and all of the chosen ones are different. Because they write from the point of view of all of them, you have an opinion about all of them (mean, sweet, insecure, irritating) which makes it a lot more interesting. I really liked the fact that one of the girls was in love with one of the other girls and how this played out and how this effected their friendship. I liked Ida the least of all, but once the story progresses you get why she is this way. She certainly spices up the groups dynamics.

The magical element sometimes is a bit too flat I think. In book one it was about how to deal with magic and how the girls struggled with this. In this part it seams to come natural to them, which is surprising since there is only one fictive summer between the two books. Halfway in the book the girls switch bodies and get to see into each others lives. While this is a nice idea, it was a bit confusing. I lost of track on who was who also because there are lots and lots of other characters in the book. Sometimes I literally had to go back some pages to understand things again.

Despite some of the things I talked about, I really enjoyed reading this book. I did not want to put it down, because I just really wanted to know how the story would end and who was responsible for the strange things happening in their town. I also liked the end of the book, now I just can not wait for part three to arrive!

One book down, lots and lots more to go!