I’m happy to say that the weather has been up the past couple of days here. Much better than all of that rain we just had. Not that I’m complaining, rain is a beautiful thing!
I know. It’s a Monday and I’m posting. What is going on?? Blame it on the weather or blame it on that notion that I’m aware I’ll be reading a lot this upcoming week; but I feel like I just gotta this review up now!
As an employee of the library, I find myself browsing the newly released adult fiction books that are out of the shelf at least once a week. I hardly ever find myself going upstairs to YA sand doing the same thing. Unless I’ve looked at the up and coming release online, I’m kinda out of the loop. Now that I’m out of my YA book funk, I found myself picking up this book when it brought back out from being processed into our regular collection.
The cover art drew me to the book; then the inside cover gave a synopsis that seemed interesting. A 16 year old girl who’s boyfriend is a volunteer firefighter, about to go out and help fight a raging wildfire. Sounds good to me!
There is no way that I can post this review without including some spoilers. As in the past, if you don’t want any spoilers, don’t read this review!
If you don’t mind, well then, continue on scrolling down.
**—————- Spoilers are coming!!——————**
Nothing Left to Burn is Heather Ezell’s debut novel. From what I gather from the back panel of the book, this book was inspired by Ezell’s childhood, growing up in an area where wildfires were a common occurrence.
As one would gather, there is nothing fluffy about this story. It’s emotional and it’s dark (I thought it was dark at least. Poor MB was away this weekend and at certain points, I’d stop reading and text him about how dark this story was).
This is another book that’s told in the current prospective and then the past. It follows the time line that builds up to the present.
16 year old Audrey Harper is being evacuated from her home at 5:20am. There is a wildfire near her gated community that’s gaining momentum and it’s gaining that momentum fast.
I guess you could say that this is where the reader is formally introduced to Audrey’s boyfriend, Brooks. Brooks is 18 years old and he just graduated from high school. He just graduated from fire school and he’s beyond stoked to be able to fight his first fire- he’s excited to save lives. (This is a commonly mentioned in the story).
Audrey evacuates to Starbucks, where she meets up with Brooks. He’s in a uniform and he’s eating up all of the attention from the public (NOW. There is something that Audrey says as a comment about Brooks being a volley. Having (and still) been a volunteer, it was a comment I was less than thrilled about. But that’s okay).
I feel like this introduction to Brooks, lays the ground work for what’s going to come. Meaning, I was 1/4 of the way through when I guessed that Brooks was going to be the arsonist. (Just go ask MB, he’ll confirm!)
The more I learned about Brooks and his relationship with Audrey, the more I thought about how the weak prey on the weak. How Brooks saw that Audrey was quiet and kept to herself; how she was vulnerable and how he took advantage of that. (Mind you, this is all my opinion).
As the reader, I wanted to be strong for Audrey. To remove her from that situation with Brooks. As the book went on, I thought that she was slowly starting to see the light.
Then the ending starting to play out.
Oh my word.
Talk about DARK.
The ending of the story was dark. It was raw. (I felt like it was really messed up too).
Woah.
Wow.
Nothing Left to Burn is burning out this review with 4 coffee beans out of 5. It was a great story. It was very dark but it was written incredibly well.
- Jillian
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