The Fire Inside - Kat Martin
Iāve written about the best book Iāve ever read. Itās time to introduce the worst, because I did not suffer just so somebody else can fall into the same trap.
Allow me to summarize. Main character Kassandra lives in old-timey England (basically a time when women didnāt have any rights) and likes to dress up as a man and sneak out of her house to draw stuff. Enter Clayton, the bastard son of some nobleman who decides he wants to ātame and protectā her, so he tricks her into marrying him. How? He ambushes her at a party, threatens to reveal her as a woman, and escorts her home, where their arguing awakens her father, who catches her climbing into her window. Daddy dearest forces a wedding to avoid a scandal. Kassandra refuses to have anything to do with her husband, including sex. She grudgingly agrees to sleep in Claytonās bed, but dresses in nightgowns that cover her neck to toes. Angry, Clayton takes all her flannel nightgowns and replaces them with sheer lingerie, which when he sees her inflames his desire to the point where he canāt help but seduce her. He never tells her he loves her, instead choosing to make her think heās only married to her because he was forced into it. She, unwilling to allow a man who doesnāt love her to take physical advantage of her, runs away to her friendās house. Clayton throws a hissy fit. When Kassandra realizes that she actually likes him, she arrives home to find him throwing a party with another woman. Destroyed, she flees. Clayton finds out that the reason she was so skittish with him was because she was raped on her sixteenth birthday. He comes to his senses and realizes what affects his actions have had (surprise, surprise) and pursues her, only to arrive in her room to discover that sheās been kidnapped by highwaymen. Right out of her bedroom! How did he discover this? She was forced to write a note saying she was running away, but she misspelled her name so someone would know something was wrong. Clayton rushes after the highwaymen and rescues her, and still doesnāt tell her he loves her. They just go home and the book is over.
If you made it all the way through that without becoming infuriated, Iām impressed. Because not only does The Fire Inside perpetuate rape culture through Claytonās insistence on seducing Kassandra, even after finding out she was already raped and several refusals to have anything to do with him, he is also emotionally distant and immature. This is basically the story of how an independant, spirited woman is beaten into submission by the men around her. And then, even after all the trauma she goes through, her husband still doesnāt have the damn sense to take care of the problem in the first place. Clayton doesnāt even have equivalent conflicts. His biggest problem is when Kassandra leaves him, and he reacts by cheating on her. Kassandra is raped, manipulated into a marriage, kidnapped, and has her heart broken multiple times. All the male character has to deal with is his own inability to go about things like a normal human being, like going up to her and confessing his feelings. It would have solved so many problems if somebody had just been honest. Of course, then we wouldnāt have a book, but I donāt think it would be the worst thing in the world if this particular book disappeared.
Iāve literally never been so infuriated by a book as I was by this one. I threw it at a wall. I wanted to burn it so the fire would consume the outside as well, but some people who are smarter than me advised against it. I ended up throwing it in the garbage. If there is one thing you go out of your way to avoid, it should be this one.
