Fire Heart by Joyce Chng


Wehia is the daughter of established forge, but all her family makes her knives and daggers, Wehia however wants nothing more than to make a true sword. After pestering her mother, she finally her mother finally relents and sends Wehia to her distance cousins forge in the city. Here, Hadana t'Tolani will teach her niece that forging a sword is much more than putting some pieces together. 

Fire Heart was a wonderful coming of age book, mixing hard life lessons, self discovery, and the confusion born by societal othering of people can lead too. Wehia is a wonderful character because even though she is completely headstrong, it is fairly obvious that she understands herself on a level you simply don't see in YA novels. Yes, Wehia has internal conflicts and she does make several reckless decisions but in the long run I can't see her going back on those decisions nor truly regretting them, only maybe that she should have given others the benefit of the doubt. 

The side characters are fantastic as well, truly all of them. Hanada is my favorite. You just rarely see a character in her position in a YA novel willing to admit their own mistakes. Chng could have chosen to make Hanada a very cookie-cutter older female character that becomes a part of the problem, and I appreciate that they opted not to. 

Add in this persecution of the border people, and quite frankly, you have a compelling coming of age story in a world that unfortunately mirrors our own currently with ICE Raids and those with the most wealth controlling everything. 

I am definitely looking forward to book 2!

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