3 1/2 Stars
A solid detective story, but never completely reeled me in. There was a bit of predictable mystery, but very little suspense. At times the storyline seemed all over the place as it bounced back and forth in time, sometimes paragraph by paragraph. The protagonist's drunken binges became wearing as the story unfolded. While a good read, not a must read.

so yeah, i totally requested this book from netgalley because i like krysten ritter and i was curious (thanks for the arc netgalley!). i had no idea what it was about but i was like sure! i'll give it a go.

i feel like this book starts off super erin bockovich-y and then all of a sudden is a mystery and dealing with some heavy stuff and possible foul play.

this book was just okay to me. for the most part i thought it was well written and paced well, though at times it either felt like it was dragging or rushed. i was shocked at the twists, i had an inkling who the bad guy was but didn't know why or how, just knew that i didn't like that person.

i didn't much like the main character either. I wanted to shake her sometimes, not to mention tell her to stop drinking. i don't think you're supposed to like her, but still. if she was a more likable character perhaps i would have liked the book more.

I feel like there were a lot of story lines and maybe i am just not a good mystery reader, but they didn't really seem like they all fit together and were explained in the end.

overall, i guess i'd recommend it if it sounds like your jam, though i don't think i will personally pick up another book by krysten ritter - only because this isn't really my preferred genre, nothing against her as a writer.

Abby Williams left her father and her hometown of Barrens, Indiana after graduation with no plans of returning. Now she an environmental attorney, and after ten years is returning to the place she dreads. She wasn’t popular in school and the cool kids tormented her and now as adults she must confront them to learn more about Optimal Plastics and the possibility of them contaminating the water supply. But Optimal has kept this town alive all these years.

Not only does Abby and her coworkers find resistance, she also deals with having to face her past. Why did her childhood friend/high school bully Kaycee Mitchell leave and never return or communicate with anyone? As the story develops, we learn not only Abby’s secrets but everyone else’s in what is a small town. It is certainly a riveting novel that I recommend.

Krysten Ritter’s debut novel feels like Erin Bockovich meets Jessica Jones. Abby is dragged back to her hometown to look into the town’s biggest employer and possible environmental problems. As reminders of her childhood friend’s disappearance pop up, she begins to suspect that there might have been foul play even back then.

Very well-paced and terrifyingly plausible story.

I haven’t had much luck recently with new authors for mysteries, but I couldn’t help myself when I saw that Krysten Ritter wrote a book. Somehow when I was looking at it, I assumed it was a young adult book and was surprised to find that it wasn’t. While a lot of the flashbacks really made it reminiscent of YA, it is a solid adult thriller.

I loved the slow-burning small town feel of this book. While Abby is back in her hometown to look into Optimal Plastics, she really has a lot of unresolved issues from her high school years. Optimal owns the town of Barrens and has brought them back from economic ruin, which makes Abby’s job more difficult when she looks for flaws in their sterling reputation. Abby was a bit of an unreliable narrator because she had a lot of emotional ties to the town which made this case personal and she did some heavy drinking throughout the book and couldn’t seem to fully remember what was happening. Part of Abby’s personal vendetta goes back to high school and the mean girls that tormented her. Kaycee was the ringleader of the mean girls, but she’s also one of the reasons Abby is convinced that Optimal is doing more harm than good.

Rumor has it that Kaycee and her friends were pretending to be sick in order to get money from Optimal, but Kaycee ran off after the other girls came clean that they were lying. Abby is convinced that Kaycee was truly sick, but no one in the town will believe her. She struggles with her investigation because the rest of her legal team can see that her personal ties are clouding her judgement and she’s not always making the best choices. So Abby does what every determined narrator does and she goes off on her own. I loved that no matter what a character said, their story always seemed a little too plausible, or was tainted with some previous memory that makes the reader uncertain if they should be trusted. Each new revelation brought more questions and almost another mystery to solve.

Abby was an interesting character and I really felt for her even if I didn’t see much of myself in her. She has a lot of family baggage and her father was one of the reasons she didn’t want to return to Barrens. Abby’s father isn’t really the same man she left and it was sad to see her struggle with how to feel about him at this point in his life. Abby’s previous prejudice seems to taint her interactions with everyone from her past. When they don’t react as she expects or she sees what their lives have become, they become less of a faceless evil and instead sad people that made poor decisions.

I was impressed with Ritter’s debut and I hope she writes more books. This was a really good mystery, but it also made me think about my memories of people from high school and how much people can change as they mature and become adults. I also kept envisioning this as a tv series, and I really think the flashbacks would make this one a tense show to watch!

NOTE: Stuff in [brackets] is whited out and must be highlighted to be read. I do not do this for every book, but if a major spoiler plot point colors my final rating, and needs elaboration, I will.
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Bit o Background:
Yes, this book is written by that Krysten Ritter.

Thoughts:

I liked it. Not only did I consistantly want to find out what really happened to Kaycee, it also has some subtle PSAs sprinkled in. We need more books that address these specific problems.

However, it's not perfect. The conclusion undermines the bullying issues that are mentioned throughout. I don't believe that's the intent of the book. It just took on too many issues at the same time and tried to tie them together. It's admirable, but it doesn't work.

Why specifically it didn't work for me...
SPOILER (mouse over to reveal) [In the end it turns out the bullying that has been occurring for at least 10 years was not only funded by, but also the original idea of the Big Bad Business that moved into town. This bothers me because most bullying, especially the sort of taking nude/semi-nude pictures of young women without their permission and distributing them, has nothing to do with business and everything to do with bullying and general entitlement.
No, the bullies are not left completely unpunished, but the end gives the impression that removing the Bad Business from town solves the problem. And that's not how these things work.]

Verdict:
3/5
The plot is a bit overreaching, but it's a solid thriller. If she's writing another book, I'd read it!

So let's get the obvious out of the way. Anyone who knows Krysten Ritter's work as an actor knows that she's a compelling performer (Marvel's Jessica Jones, Breaking Bad). As it turns out, Ritter has considerable skill as a writer, as well. This is definitely not a vanity publication such as one might see with many other performers of various genres. So just get that one right out of your head, if you were wondering.

Set in the fictional small town of Barrens (such an apt name), Indiana, Bonfire is a suspense novel that initially seems to have an Erin Brockovich feel but takes a sharp left turn into a mystery. Abby Williams, a local woman who left Barrens at eighteen and who has become a lawyer, has returned to her hometown to investigate reported environmental contamination by the corporation which practically owns the town and its residents, Optimal Plastics. Abby is haunted by memories of her frenemy Kaycee, a young woman who seems to have run away from Barrens after being caught in a web of deceit. In a town where everything seems to be built on a platform of lies and graft, Abby encounters peers from her past and comes to terms with her aging father's health. The element of claustrophobia from the small town atmosphere is palpable. The foibles of Ritter's characters are so well written and the passages dealing with Abby and her father are very poignant ones. The ways we process, sometimes incorrectly, our blurred memories of the past were so well-drawn. As the mysteries of what is going on with Optimal Plastics and Kaycee deepen and eventually intersect, the reader gets drawn into a classic "can't put it down" story. While you may suspect some facts of that story early on, the whys and hows play out in surprising ways.

While I found some aspects of the plot to be rather hazy in rationale toward the end of the book, on the strength of her character development, this is a strong debut novel. I look forward to Ritter's next novel.

I really enjoyed this book. It almost felt at times like there were 2 different parallel storylines going on, but for the most part they all tied together nicely. Good character development, I thought at first the drinking was a little strange, but given her history, it makes sense.

I love the cover of this book, it caught my eye right away. I wasn’t sure if the author, Krysten Ritter was the same person as the actress who played Jane from Breaking Bad. Remember her dying in the bed while Walter White watched? Yes, it’s the same actress. I am super excited to read this mystery!

Here’s what you need to know:

It has been ten years since Abby Williams left home and scrubbed away all visible evidence of her small town roots. Now working as an environmental lawyer in Chicago, she has a thriving career, a modern apartment, and her pick of meaningless one-night stands.

But when a new case takes her back home to Barrens, Indiana, the life Abby painstakingly created begins to crack. Tasked with investigating Optimal Plastics, the town’s most high-profile company, and economic heart, Abby begins to find strange connections to Barrens’ biggest scandal from more than a decade ago involving the popular Kaycee Mitchell and her closest friends—just before Kaycee disappeared for good.

Abby knows the key to solving any case lies in the weak spots, the unanswered questions. But as Abby tries to find out what really happened to Kaycee, she unearths an even more disturbing secret—a ritual called “The Game,” which will threaten the reputations, and lives, of the community and risk exposing a darkness that may consume her.

With tantalizing twists, slow-burning suspense, and a remote, rural town of just five claustrophobic miles, Bonfire is a dark exploration of the question, can you ever outrun your past?

This sounds like it has the potential to be one of those books that you don’t want to put down until every last question is answered. Those on Goodreads have been raving about this novel and praising Krysten for being not only a great actress but great writer too!

What an engaging novel. Yes, Krysten Ritter is an actress but she also developed an intriguing plot and wrote a good novel. (I definitely heard Ritter narrating the first 50 pages in my mind and then it calmed down.) Abby Williams left her hometown of Barrens, IN as soon as she could after high school and now she has to return. Someone has complained that the big industrial company in town is doing harm to the environment and Abby's firm has to see if the complaints have merit.

But returning to her hometown brings back memories Abby has barely pushed to the back of her mind - like the cruel things people used to say to her. Or the time the girls in the powerful clique all pretended to be sick from a mysterious ailment. (Were they pretending?)

But most of all, Abby is haunted by the disappearance of Kaycee, the ringleader of the clique and her best friend when they were younger. What was the real reason Kaycee left and who in Barrens knows the truth? It's an uncomfortable reunion as Abby encounters one classmate after another as she seeks answers.

The plot twists are well designed and several answers are unexpected. Don't expect to love these townies- it's not that kind of town. But Ritter will keep you engaged all the way to the bitter end.

This book kept me guessing until right at the end! Throughout the entire book my mind was racing. Each time I thought I had it figured out there would be a twist in the plot that threw me off. It was a good quick read. I couldn't put it down and couldn't wait to get to the end and see all of the pieces come together. I would definitely recommend reading this one!

Thank you to Netgalley, the publishing house and especially, the author, for the opportunity to read this book in return for my honest opinion.

I did not know that as well as being a great actress, Krysten Ritter, is a great author. I really enjoyed this book.

Abby Williams said she would never go back home, but her job led her there and gave her the opportunity to try to get closure of a mystery that had bothered her for years. This was a small town as its worst, it makes you want to drive around small towns like this. Was this town as odd as it seemed or was Abby just remembering things differently; her old high school crush was still in town as well as the girls who bullied her, had time changed them? What was wrong with this town, is there something wrong with their water supply or was it really a few bitter people?

I enjoyed how this story played out, I wavered back and forth of the veracity of some of the characters. I was pleased with the ending, it was fitting.

I will definitely check out any other books Ms Ritter writes.

Far from the vanity projects many celebrities tend to write (or attach their names to without ever actually constructing a sentence), Ritter's debut novel is suspenseful and gripping. Bonfire is right on trend with the "flawed female protagonist with a dark past" genre that's been booming since Gone Girl, and it actually manages to be better than many entries that have come before it. The final reveal isn't all that surprising, but given Abby's past and present insecurities, it makes sense that she wouldn't see it coming as easily as readers may.

Not all the characters are as round as Abby, which is the only real shortcoming of Bonfire, an otherwise engrossing slow-burn.

Unlike most celebrity-written books this was a well written suspense novel. It sucked me in on page one and did not let go until the end. Without giving everything away, I will say the ending is not super predictable, although you knew something was afoot and that all of the players who needed to get what was coming to them got it.

Was I little skeptical of Krysten Ritter's book? Yes. The last fiction I read by a celebrity author disappointed me, and I was anticipating that Bonfire might be a let-down as well. But a compelling story and writing that I would find to be well done by any debut author drew me into this book pretty quickly, and I'm happy to say that I'd love to read more by Ritter. It wasn't perfect writing (the main character lets out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding in the first chapter), but the story was so consuming that a few cliches are forgiven. Abby has come back to her tiny hometown to investigate environmental alligations against the largest employer and funding source in town. She left town after high school and hasn't looked back since, and she's finding that being back isn't making her childhood seem any rosier. While working on the case that brought her back to town, Abby starts to wonder if there's any connection to the illness and then disappearance of her once friend turned high school tormenter, Kaycee. This small town is full of secrets and cover ups, and Abby is determined to get answers.
Abby is an interesting character, and partway through the book she seems to become somewhat unreliable. I'd actually love if Ritter wrote more books featuring Abby, because she's full of baggage and I think there's more to unpack. The story is fast paced and the crimes and suspicions become more and more sordid and painful as the story goes on. The ending wraps up rather quickly- but again, I'd love if we did get to see more of Abby someday. A well done debut!

I thoroughly enjoyed this debut novel from Krysten Ritter. As other reviewers have mentioned, there is a certain amount of skepticism when an actor releases a novel. Will it actually be a good story or will it only get good reviews because of the recognizable name? Can someone be so talented as to both act and write well? Ritter proves that is entirely possible with Bonfire.

From the prologue, which I would describe as deliciously creepy, the book hangs a thread of suspense that grows more weighty with each chapter. I enjoyed the characters, including the protagonist Abby, and the small town setting. Some small towns build you up but others each you alive and Barrens is like that. The town as a whole is its own predatory character, reminiscent of Stephen King’s Derry (the setting for his novel IT). The pacing was good for a suspense thriller, urging you along without falling into a fast and furious action bit, and I found the ending satisfying.

Overall, a very strong debut novel and I hope it isn’t the last of Ritter we get to see in the book world.

NOTE: I received a free Kindle edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher Crown Publishing, and the author Krysten Ritter for the opportunity to do so.

This book was a pleasant surprise kind of read and embraced the spookiness. I enjoyed the complexity, it wasn’t predictable and the writing was intelligent. Erin Brokovich meets Bones meets Mean Girls is all I need to say.

As I've said in my updates, Krysten Ritter is quite a decent writer, her writing is probably better than many already established bestselling writers.

The story of Bonfire is hard to classified. I really got some Veronica Mars the movie vibes from it. Small town setting with a heroine that got away from there years ago, and a new mystery connected with old ones. There are some plot points that I've guessed from halfway through. (<spoiler>Like Kaycee's long dead, and her death was covered up; and that Brent is some fucked up evil bastard.</spoiler>) But it still kept me guessing when it comes to minor details. Like Abby, I got the big picture(I before she), but missed a lot on the detail department.

As for the characters, I didn't really get Abby's character. She was nervous and wary about her past in Barrens at the beginning, but as the story goes on, she seems to have forgotten her initial personality and became single-minded and started to drink a lot. I think this development is somewhat forced. The minor characters are mostly there as smoke and mirrors, everything they do, you have to second guess. So I didn't get attached to any of the characters.

Overall, I enjoyed the story and the mystery part. But the character building left something to be desired. I would definitely check out Krysten Ritter's future works. It's rare to see a celebrity write fiction works that actually stand for themselves, not just selling big names.

Okay book. It didn't really hold my interest. I stopped reading about half way through.

Once again, I requested and was granted a book without knowing that the author, Krysten Ritter, had already made quite a name for herself, this time as an actress and producer.
Ritter's debut novel has protagonist Abby Williams returning to her home in rural Indiana after an absence of ten years. She's a single, upscale successful environmental lawyer out of Chicago with a decent paycheck and comfortably austere digs. Abby intends on investigating Optimal Plastics and their possible involvement in transient sicknesses and other health concerns connected with the major corporation, which has been the source of economic livelihood for the little community.
Barrens, however, has not been the source of happy memories for Abby and returning home begins to lay open old scars from childhood.
The legal team that includes Joe, a close office friend and colleague, is ensconced in a farmer's large barn and initiates investigation as Abby begins to devolve back to younger, impotent Abby. The abrupt disappearance of Kaycee the end of high school has brought back painful memories and confronting those demands her further attention, diverting complete concentration from the Optimal investigation.
She discovers a disturbing secret that, being an independent lone wolf, she had missed called "The Game." As strong a character as her lawyer profile was presumed to be, I was disappointed in that she seems to revert to a stuttering, incompetent female.
Dialogue actually flows rather evenly, although Abby could be a pain, over obsessing. Characters were fleshed out well enough not to like many of them, particularly Annie, the snot. It's obvious that Abby is still trying to control old sorrows with booze and sex, drinking too much and crawling into another bed. Conversations seem to whittle down to four letter words. No one here I could really identify with and didn't have a real connection. My problem is the focus diverted from the original environmental investigation, the personal back story (bit by bit more nasty), and the damage to the protagonist. The ending seemed a bit harsh and abrupt, though not wholly unsatisfying.
Not really a unique plot, no thrilling twists, though definitely a solid effort for a debut novel with a promising author, aside of her acting or producing accomplishments. Would be interested to see if her efforts don't mature. Recommended for mystery, suspense fans. I received this download from Crown Publishing and NetGalley and greatly appreciated the opportunity to read and review for you!