Burn

Product Information

Disclosure: I received a review copy of Burn from HarperCollins Publishers, the publisher, in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. As much as I enjoyed reading how the story unfolded during the first half of Burn, after some time I felt like things were beginning to drag on. In part, that stemmed from the choice to present Burn from multiple perspectives; too many perspectives, in my opinion. Frequently jumping around between scenes became quite jarring. I’d be so invested in learning what would happen next with Sarah, that I almost groaned whenever a new character was introduced. Apparently I was wrong because quite literally everything went wrong. And I am really sad about it.

Burn by Patrick Ness | Waterstones

Set in 1950s America at a time when humans and dragons co-exist. We meet young Sarah Dewhurst and her father who is waiting for the arrival of a dragon that will help them on their farm, as they are much cheaper than people. The dragon, a Russian Blue named Kazimir is there though to protect Sarah and to save the world. It is also just an incredible story with twists that I didn't see coming at all. Yeah, there's nothing more to say except I never wanted to put this book down and now I love it, the end. Sarah is a sweet young girl who has been brought up by her father alone on their farm since their mother died. To keep the farm and pay off the debts her father needs a bumper crop and harvest and to be able to afford this he hires a dragon. The story is set on a farm in Frome, Washington, in 1957. It begins when the father of a teenager, Sarah, hires a dragon to clear a field for them with his fiery breath, but the arrival of the dragon heralds a series of horrific events. A number of acutely drawn characters make this world authentic and fascinating. There is a bad cop whose hatred seeps throughout their small town and whose every move and word is toxic. There is Sarah herself, a teenager who lives alone with her farmer father after the death of her mother, and there’s the boy next door, Jason Inagawa, for whom Sarah has romantic feelings. There is also a cult of dragon worshippers who believe in a prophecy that predicts the end of the world.A young man from the cult is sent on a mission to the very same farm, but is he there to halt or enact the prophecy? Following him are two FBI agents, ruthless and prepared to stop at nothing. There is romance, persecution, a goddess, alternate universes and much, much more. But at the centre of it all is Sarah, a seemingly ordinary girl who may just hold the key to preventing the end of the world.

Burn - Patrick Ness - Google Books Burn - Patrick Ness - Google Books

The twists and turns that it contains with, the teenage assassin Malcom of who discovers being gay does not matter and makes his alternate dimension self (Hugo) know that too. You know when you go to an all-you-can-eat buffet and you fill your plate so much it challenges all the laws of physics? I definitely thought I knew where this book was going, and then when we started creeping up to the half way point I realised that Malcolm was nearly at the farm, Agent Woolf not far behind, the satellite was wherever the satellite needed to be and basically, everything was leading up to the end I predicted. But it was only half way through.FBI Agents Woolf and Dernovich have been given the task of finding the assassin and stopping him after he killed some of their men with the help of a dragon. It was dealing with racism and homophobia and police brutality and prophecies and dragons and multiple universes and war and grief and religion and faith and cults and love and family and godhood and destruction of the world(s) and myths and political intrigues and goddammit mate, is this list ever gonna end? And another thing I strongly did not like was the ending. I thought it was cheap and just too easy. The fact that Sarah stayed in the parallel universe and all the deaths that happened on Earth #1 got reversed made me mad. Literally every single dead person got resurrected and she got to re-start a new perfect life – nah, fam, I’m not about that life. The use of the resurrection trope bothered me to no end and I simply could not get on board with all that.