Fire & Heist by Sarah Beth Durst

Rating: 3.5/5

Genre: YA, fantasy

First published: 2018

Author: Sarah Beth Durst

Synopsis: Leading your first heist is a major milestone in Sky Hawkin’s family—even more so than learning to talk, walk, or do long division. It’s a chance to gain power and acceptance within society. But stealing your first treasure can be complicated—especially when you’re a wyvern, a human capable of transforming into a dragon.

---

This book was such a pleasant surprise for me. I did a “read a chapter to decide if I’ll keep these books” kind of thing a while back and this was one of the books that I was thinking to unhaul because I thought I wouldn’t like it. But I ended up keeping it and really enjoying it. It’s a pretty light fantasy, I’d say it’s more of a contemporary than a fantasy, but it was so quick and fun. I really enjoyed the characters, I enjoyed the romance which rarely happens especially in contemporaries for me. I just genuinely had a fun time with this book.

The plot was fairly generic. There wasn’t anything massively surprising about it, but it was still enjoyable. It was predictable, but not boring. I love heist stories and while this wasn’t the most ingenious and elaborate heist ever, I had a good time with reading it. The writing style is I think where a lot of the enjoyability of the book comes from. It’s really funny, it’s a first person narration and I really liked the main character. Another thing that happens very rarely in YA contemporaries for me. But I really liked her, she felt like an actual person and she was funny.

It’s also very short and fast paced. It’s the kind of book you can easily read in one day. there was I would say more focus on friendship and family relationships than there was on the romance, which spoke to my soul and is probably why I enjoyed the romance as much as I did. I love seeing family and friendship dynamics in books far more than I like seeing romance ones, especially in YA where every single one feels the same.

So yeah, very pleasantly surprised. Glad I gave it a shot before unhauling it and if you’re looking for a fun, fast, fantasy-ish but more contemporary book, give this one a try.