An Un-Calibrated Centrifuge

Burn for Burn is the first book I’ve read this year that I really enjoyed. I honestly wasn’t expecting that much when I started it. Jenny Han’s Summer trilogy wasn’t anything special, so I didn’t have high hopes. Also, the book is co-authored, and sometimes that leads to inconsistent writing. However, Burn for Burn was surprisingly good. Despite being over 300 pages it’s a quick read. The plot builds slowly, but I never lost interest in the story. The story also felt very believable to me.

The main storyline is three girls exacting revenge upon their peers who have wronged them. And while that story could become convoluted, overcomplicated, unbelievable, Han and Vivian strike the perfect balance between believability and drama.

I don’t want to give anything away, but I will say that the plot builds nicely. It seems a little slow at the beginning, but everything pays off at the end. I didn’t know it when I was reading Burn for Burn, but this is the first book in a trilogy. Towards the end of the book, I guessed that might be the case, but the book could be read as a standalone novel which I appreciate. I really dislike first books where nothing happens, where the whole story serves as an introduction to the rest of the books. I firmly believe that first books need to have their own self-contained storyline. Destroy the Death Star or go home. Burn for Burn does that, while also leading into the next book, which I will definitely be reading when it’s released.

The narration is shared between the three girls planning their revenges. Despite the number of YA novels being written today, I think it’s still rather difficult to find one where the teenagers read like real teenagers. Han and Vivian definitely nailed their characters voices.** Their relationships, problems and plans are realistic.

The only plot point I didn’t enjoy, which will probably be explained later in the series were the unexplained events surrounding Mary. I won’t say more because I don’t want to spoil anything, but I wish those parts of the book had been left out, and I hope they don’t become the main focus of the other books.

My one complaint about the book is that Lillia refers to her eyes as Asian eyes. I mean, come on. There are over two billion people living in China and India alone, it seems silly that there are still generalizations about “Asian eyes.” Especially coming from an Asian author.* I also wish there were more characters of color. The Chos (Lillia’s family) were the only non-white characters in the entire book. I did appreciate that they were portrayed as a “normal” family though. There were some stereotyped comments, but the narrative made it clear (at least to me) that they weren’t OK.

Burn for Burn is a good read. It’s quick, interesting, believable. Hurry up and read it before the sequel is released in September!

*A more correct term would have been monolids, which are more prevalent in Asians and are apparently hard to apply make up to. I would guess most of the make up tips for monolids are how to make your eyes look like you don’t have monolids… which is a problem that I won't dissect on goodreads (/booklikes).

**Though, keep in mind this judgement of teenager voice is coming from someone who is no longer a teenager.