The Burning Girl is a coming of age story of best friends Cassie and Julia. As their paths diverge, Cassie starts to make more and more decisions which could endanger not just their friendship but her life. Julia worries but can Cassie really be saved?
I wasn’t quite sure what The Burning Girl was about when I started reading and found that the title isn’t really related to the story. It’s a very straight forward coming of age story for two friends who grow to be very dissimilar.
The Burning Girl is from Julia’s point of view, but its Cassie who really has the story to tell. Although they’ve grown apart Julia still seems to know everything about Cassie. A lot of Cassie’s story is given through second and third hand accounts. As Cassie has told someone what happened and that person has told Julia. So the narrative of the story is very untrustworthy.
Nearing the end of the book there was tension and suspense but the majority of the book was quite slow. I felt the length of the timeline hindered the pacing as we follow Julia throughout years. There’s not even that much of a story arc going on within her younger years.
Another issue was that sometimes The Burning Girl was emotional and sometimes it felt like an objective overview. Julia was narrating Cassie’s life for the audience with brief asides of emotion but it was mostly factual. Between the point of view being Julia and the objective feel, I never really cared for Cassie.
Overall, I think The Burning Girl just wasn’t a book for me, as I enjoy big epic fantasies and action packed stories. I received The Burning Girl* by Claire Messud as an e-book from the publisher via Netgalley. This is an unbiased and honest review.
