FIRE & HEIST by Sarah Beth Durst – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Fire & Heist by Sarah Beth Durst
Published by Crown Books for Young Readers on December 4 2018
Genres: Young adult, Fantasy
Pages: 304
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: A fantasy with lots of potential that felt more “middle grade” than “young adult,” Fire & Heist had some fun moments but ultimately disappointed me.

I had heard all sorts of good things about Sarah Beth Durst’s The Queens of Renthia series, and so I was eager to check out her latest, a young adult fantasy set in a world where wyverns—people who can transform into dragons—live among the human population. The story description promised heists, dragons and romance, and Durst delivered all of these elements, although with varying degrees of success. I had fun with this book, and while it didn’t rock my world, I can see why Durst is so popular. My biggest complaint with Fire & Heist was how young it felt, and I’ve read other reviews that say the same thing. At times the writing felt as if it were geared toward the middle grade crowd, which isn’t a bad thing by any means, but since it’s marketed for young adults, it definitely threw me off and forced me to lower my rating. If I had to describe this story in a couple of words, those words would be “fun and silly.”

And fair warning, there are some mild spoilers in this review, because it’s hard to mention my concerns about the story without going into spoiler territory.

Sky Hawkins, along with her parents and her three brothers, is a wyvern, a creature descended from none other than Sir Francis Drake. Wyverns are treated almost like royalty, and the bigger hoard of gold and treasures a family has, the higher up in society they are. (Picture Smaug curled around his huge pile of gold and you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about.) Unfortunately for Sky’s family, her mother’s recent bungled heist attempt has reduced the family’s wealth by half and lowered their status dramatically. After the attempt, Sky’s boyfriend Ryan Keene publicly shunned her, and now not only has her family been shamed, but she’s had her heart broken as well. And Sky’s mother? Well, she’s vanished, and no one will tell Sky what happened to her, although it’s almost certain that her father knows the truth.

But a chance encounter with Ryan gives Sky some hope that there might be a way to earn that status back. Sky’s mother was attempting to steal something from the Keene family vault when she was caught, and Ryan tells Sky that the entire thing was captured on the surveillance cameras. Since Ryan is familiar with the security locks and spells surrounding the vault, he proposes that he help Sky with what could be her first official heist: steal the jewel that her mother was after, restore her family’s honor and status, and possibly even discover what happened to her mother. What could go wrong?

I want to start out with some things that Durst did really well. The story starts out with a bang, with Sky home alone in her house when the burglar alarms are triggered, and she realizes that someone is breaking into their house. I loved Sky’s voice and the humorous moment when she discovers that it’s her brothers who are trying to steal their mother’s solid gold piano. This was a great opening scene that really drew me into the story. In fact, I loved the first half, where Sky, Ryan and Sky’s friend Gabriela are planning the heist. It had that Ocean’s Eleven feel to it that I had been expecting, and I thought the author did a great job of ramping up the tension while delving into her world-building at the same time. Because honestly, there are a lot of rules to this world and it was a little confusing at times.

I also loved some of the characters, in particular Sky’s friend Gabriela. She’s a human, but she’s completely obsessed with the world of wyverns. She even studies their history (which was a convenient way for Durst to spoon feed us some of the world-building elements) and she loves unicorns, which apparently are real and live in the land where wyverns come from, a place simply called Home. In the beginning, Sky isn’t that interested in Gabriela, who is more of an acquaintance than a friend, but once they start working together their blossoming friendship really worked for me.

Because the story is told from Sky’s point of view, it’s easy to like her snarky humor and enthusiasm for all things involving the heist, which include picking locks and doing complicated gymnastics moves over laser beams in order to get to the vault! (I kid you not.) But honestly, I didn’t really connect with any of the other characters. Her brothers are barely in the story at all, her father is typically gruff and standoffish, and even Ryan felt like more of a cookie cutter boyfriend than someone with real depth. And her mother! Well, spoiler alert, we do get to meet Sky’s mom about halfway through the story, and she was such a shallow and clichéd character that I almost put down the book at that point.

Which leads me to the rest of the issues I had with Fire & Heist. The first half is great, but (here’s where the big spoiler comes in), once Sky goes through a portal to Home, the entire story took a nosedive for me. The world-building, which didn’t really make sense to me in the first half, suddenly seemed ridiculous. In Home, wyverns can easily change from human form to dragon, and Sky is told she must compete in an event called the Reckoning, where your rank will be determined depending on how well you can fly and shoot fire out of your mouth. No surprise here, Sky has no trouble at all transforming into her dragon form (with only a short pep talk to “believe in yourself” before she’s told to jump off a cliff and fly!) There are also unicorns frolicking in the meadows and ROBOTS acting as servants to the dragons. I can’t even.

I think this story might have worked better as a duology instead of a standalone, because the second half felt so rushed and badly stitched together. I would have preferred to spend more time on the build-up to the heist, which would have given Durst room to develop her characters, then end the first book with Sky going through the portal. But sadly, this did not happen, and we ended up with an overstuffed plot that had very little depth or complexity. Plot developments that first seemed dramatic and full of danger were often too easily resolved. I can’t begin to count the number of “convenient” moments in the story that ruined the excitement I felt in the beginning.

Oddly, Durst actually pokes fun of her own world-building at times, and I loved these unexpected moments. But unfortunately, they weren’t enough for me to fully embrace this story. I recommend this book for younger readers who want something light and funny to read, and aren’t concerned about some very silly and confusing fantasy elements.

Side note: I see there is another cover for Fire & Heist, and I’m not sure which is the correct one. Apologies if I got it wrong!