Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House Children's Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I was a huge HUGE fan of Wilder Girls so when I saw this, I jumped at the chance. This book, while completely different from Wilder Girls, is just as good if not better.
There is a trigger warning for abuse. However, this has to be one of the most realistic portrayals of abuse and neglect I have ever read in a YA book. It was one that I could relate to all to well as Margot's relationship with her mother reminded me of mine. Especially some of the deceit that takes place.

The story is fantastic, fast pace and keeps you guessing. I found it very easy to connect to Margot and actually become very invested in her. It was to the point where my heart was pounding for her and what she was going through. Rory Power wrote this book with some much passion, so much heart, it all jumps across the pages to you and you can't help but become wrapped up in it.

Fantastic!!

This book wasn’t for me but I can definitely appreciate it for the story it told. It was well written and the overall plot was well thought out:

Give Rory Power all the money and all the book deals. I love her, I love her writing and she is becoming and instabuy author for me!

"That yes, it's exactly what they think, and nothing like it, and a hundred other things at once. I will always wish I were hers, and I will always want to be only my own. I haven't found a way yet to make the two fit."

I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Random House/Delacorte Press. Trigger warnings: death, child/twin death, fires, violence, guns, abusive households, mental/emotional abuse, mental illness, threats.

For as long as she can remember, it has always been Margot and her mother, just the two of them against the world and, sometimes, against each other. Margot has learned to navigate her mother’s strange idiosyncrasies, which include not asking questions about the past. But Margot longs for a family, to know her history so that she might know herself and, finally, belong somewhere. When she discovers a clue in her mother’s old things, it leads her to the small farming town, Phalene, where everyone seems to know her face–and her story–except Margot. The more secrets she uncovers, the more she begins to suspect that there’s something rotten lurking in her family tree, something her mother may have had good reason to run from.

While Wilder Girls fell a little short for me in terms of character and overall cohesiveness, I fell in love with Power’s writing style, and I’ll likely seek out all her future books for that reason alone. She has a gift for capturing the uncanny and the off-putting in beautiful prose, and lovely/creepy is basically my personality in a nutshell. I still love the concept of Wilder Girls more, but it was a first novel and reads like one. Burn Our Bodies Down feels a touch more sophisticated on a storytelling level: stronger character development, more thematic unity, and better closure on the overall plot.

Did I mention that Power has a gift for the uncanny? It’s not as graphic in this novel as it is in Wilder Girls (which may appeal to a wider pool of readers who can’t do body horror), but it’s there. There’s a subtle ripple of unease running throughout the entire book, everything just ever so slightly off center, like walking into a familiar room where something has been moved. (My friend Roberta at Offbeat Ya calls it Contemporary With A Twist, and I think this would fit nicely on that shelf.) While the plots have little in common, I was frequently reminded of Bone Gap by Laura Ruby, largely thanks to the cornfields and the general sense of wrongness everywhere. She also has some Nova Ren Suma vibes, in the way that they both write unsettling stories with largely female casts.

Right from the beginning, we have a clear sense of who Margot is and what she wants, how the longing for a family is tearing her up inside. She’d do anything to have it, ethics be damned, and it makes for a fine morally gray heroine (and an emotionally fragile child that I just want to see things get better for). Her relationships with her mother and grandmother are fraught, complex, and not a little dysfunctional. Her relationship with Tess isn’t quite as strong, but since the real heart of the novel is family, that makes sense. Margot’s character development is also top-notch, and we really have the sense that things have shifted in a big way for her by the end of the novel.

The suspense builds slowly as Margot unearths more and more evidence that there’s something wrong with her family, and the plot is similarly slow-moving. I didn’t mind because there was plenty of pretty writing, atmosphere, and character building to keep me occupied, but it’s not going to work for readers who prefer a lot of things “happening.” I almost wish Power hadn’t tried to explain things at the end. It’s a fine twist of reasoning, more science fiction than the supernatural I was expecting, but it’s not the real payoff of the novel. It’s a weird, lovely, unsettling book, not quite like anything else I’ve ever read. I’ll be looking for a copy for my bookshelf when it’s released.

I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.

Excellent book that gives me major vibes of Tarryn Fisher's Marrow. Very unexpected twists and I couldn't help but keep reading. Hard to put down.

This is by far the strangest book that I have ever read. It just didn't make sense, even after being explained.

This book was a slow burn horror for the ages. The mother/daughter dynamic was toxic and compelling. I loved this sophomore effort and will now just read anything that Rory Power writes ever.

Keep a Fire Burning. Fire is what saves you.

Burn Our Bodies Down begins as a story about a complicated mother-daughter relationship. It’s messy and horribly dependent. Margot knows nothing about her mother’s past or her extended family, and when her curiosity is too much, she leaves her life behind in order to find the truth. Margot quickly finds out that her past and the truth are things that should have stayed buried.

There is a heaviness there that grows and grows as their story unfolds. Rory Power does a lurking quiet weirdness the best and it really shines in this book. The matriarchal relationships are twisted and unsettling. The women are complicated and wonderful. The small-town atmosphere and the descriptions of fields of corn create the perfect backdrop for a story like this. I have never been so uneasy about corn before and probably won’t look at them the same way again. Also, it wouldn’t be a Power book, I feel, without some pretty gruesome horror descriptions. I meant it.

There is something about Rory Power’s way of writing that just lingers after you finish a sentence or close one of her books. She’s able to create short sentences with so much meaning and I am really in awe of her talent as a writer. Burn Our Bodies Down is no different. It’s a thrilling, horrifying ride that you just can’t put down. I feel like my words are not doing this story justice, but you need this dark read in your hands.

*Thank you so much to NetGalley, Delacorte Press, and Random House Children’s for an ARC copy in exchange for a review. *

This was...bizarre to say the very least, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but, I'm not sure all the craziness and weirdness completely worked for me. The writing was fabulous and I really did enjoy something original, especially in this genre so bonus stars for that.
Overall, not a bad story just different in ways both good and bad.

Actual rating: 3.5

Hmm, this book was one of my most anticipated 2020 releases, especially after how much Wilder Girls blew me away, but I’m honesty kind of disappointed.

It has been just Margot and her mother for the last 17 years, and their relationship is the furthest thing from healthy it could be. Josephine constantly gaslights Margot and Margot tends to keep “score” with the fights she gets into with her mother, wanting to win each one. One day, Margot finds a picture of her mother as a young girl with a town name and a phone number, and when she calls she starts down a path of discovery that perhaps brings more pain that she could ever be prepared for.

I don’t quite know what I expected but Burn Our Bodies Down definitely what I was prepared for. In many ways, this feels like a story of generational trauma and how the choices made by those that came before affect us today. There are so many secrets and unraveling them leads to a darker reality than anticipated.

I just really don’t know what to think of this book. I’m sure some of that is because I had such high hopes, and while this book was good and the mystery drew me in, I don’t think I like the ending. I like the way things end with Margot’s relationship with her mother because it feels like a chance for both of them to heal and have space from each other, but the rest of it has left me unsettled.

I really appreciated and enjoyed the lesbian representation and I liked that this isn’t a romance in any sense. I was guessing about the truth up until revelations started piling up, and it’s definitely fascinating. I just think the ending ruined something for me and I’m feeling more disappointed than anything else…

Literally 2 paragraphs in and I was hooked! It’s writing like this that entrances you. “But the rules are more important. They’re always more important. Keep a fire burning; a fire is what saves you. The first, the last, the heart of them all. She taught me that as soon as I was old enough to hold a lighter in my palm. Whispered it to me in the dark. Pressed it against my forehead in place of a kiss.” Rory’s writing is what I’ve been craving to read.

Thank you Random House Children's and Delacorte Press for an advance copy!

As someone who has never read Wilder Girls I went into this book with no idea of what to expect. This is not an easy story.

Margot's mother refuses to share any details of her upbringing leaving her with feeling completely shut out from her lineage. Jo is a negligent and frankly an abusive parent who is unable to connect with her daughter. As much as they love each other they have a tumultuous relationship.

Margot, unsatisfied with the non-answers she receives from Jo, decides to go to to find answers from anyone who give her them. What follows is a mystery woven into the intergenerational trauma of the Nielsen family.

I believed the story told in Wilder Girls because the writing was solid. I did not however believe this one. It wasn't for me.

I absolutely loved Wilder Girls, so I was very excited for this book. However, although I felt there were great ideas and in general a great story here, I found the book itself to be somewhat underdeveloped. Most of the book feels like the MC's internal monologue, and I would have loved to see more of her interacting with other characters throughout the book. I also found the ending somewhat rushed and would have loved to see more in the second half of the book overall.

Basically, this book left me wanting more but not necessarily in a good way.

I still loved the concept, and I found this to be very original and promising. I especially loved the horror elements of the book. I just wish the whole book was more fleshed out. No pun intended.

Not entirely sure what I was expecting, but I loved how the book focused on mother-daughter relationships, in particular, and how to figure out what you're willing to accept from people, and how it's okay to want more, to walk away, to say enough.

This was amazing. After reading Wilder Girls and really liking it, I couldn't wait to get to read Burn Our Bodies Down! This was such a fast read for me and I enjoyed it immensely. It was strange, and sometimes disturbing and really gave me the weird vibes that I love in a book. Rory Power has a gift to make a book seem normal and make you feel as if the weird things that are happening are things that happen in real life, but also give you that 'what the actual heck' feeling. I don't even know if that makes sense, but I just liked this a lot and I think if you want a book that is towards the hard-hitting contemporary with weird, creepy, abnormal vibes, then this is the book for you. Of course if you liked Wilder Girls I think you'll like this as well. This was such an interesting family dynamic, and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time wondering what in the world was going on. I do wish we got more of the side characters and had more interactions with them. The few side characters we got felt a little flat to me, and while they weren't 100% pertinent to the main plot itself, it would've been nice for them to be a little more dimensional than they were. My main reason for giving this 4 stars instead of 5 is that I was anticipating an ending similar to Wilder Girls. That mind blown/I don't know what just happened/was that even the ending type of ending. And we didn't get that, we got a mostly nice, wrapped up ending. Which is fine, and is really my own fault for fully expecting something else. I would've loved there to be a creepy/weird twisted ending of some sort, but hey ho we can't always get what we want.

Thank you to NetGalley for the e-galley.

Seventeen-year-old Margot leaves her mother in search of the family she's kept hidden. Clues lead her to a grandmother who harbors secrets of her own. Now in too deep, Margot must unravel her family's poisoned past and break the cycle.

Although I love Rory Power's writing, the story kind of dragged me down. The twists came too late and by that time nothing shocked me. I am not sure what could have been done differently, but this certainly lacked the promise I felt we got in Wilder Girls. This was certainly supposed to be a horror novel and that is what sold me in the first place, so I suppose I was hoping for something to wow me before the end.

Unfortunately, this is a miss for me.

I absolutely loved Wilder Girls, but I could not get through this latest title from Rory Power.

Power seems to want to create a Gillian Flynn type scenario-- daughter has been isolated by her mother and her mother's strange rituals. Daughter seeks out her grandmother in an attempt to escape and also learn about her past. What she finds there is even more disturbing than what she left at home with her unfeeling mom.

While there is promise in the creepy plot elements, she just doesn't deliver on sucking the reader into the story. It moves both too fast and too slow in places. Too little exposition and too many questions. It is strange, but in a way that puts you off instead of invites you in.

This was a Do Not Finish for me.

*Spoiler free*

Alright, it's time to freak out about Burn Our Bodies down! I was a huge fan of Wilder Girls and I was seriously looking forward to anything else Power might write. So much so, that I was pretty much jumping up and down when I was standing in front of the booth at ALAMW and shouting that it was about corn. Yeah, I was very much looking forward to this book haha. Trigger warnings: fire, emotional abuse, death, vomiting, gun violence (off page), gore

Wilder Girls was green, wet, and haunting. Burn Our Bodies Down is red, sunburned, and unnerving. Both of them are incredible. It's amazing that we get to live in a world with two weird, complicated, and uncomfortable Rory Power books. Basically, this book blew me away and is all kinds of incredible.

This book is weird and unnerving. It made me uncomfortable, but in a good way. It has such a unique feel to it. It's like the book knows something you don't and it's very much enjoying planting the seeds to make you unnerved. It's kind of hard to explain, but it's feels orange, it feels like apricot juice that's gone kind of bad. It feels like dry heat and it feels like the setting sun coming through the windows.

I guess I'll just start with the plot because I could talk about it all day. It was very, very good. THE APRICOTS. AND THE CORN. It's so smart and so well executed. There are small hints placed so gently in front of you, but aren't quite connected until just the right moment. I usually get frustrated with this kind of foreshadowing, but it works so well in this instance. Power doesn't leave a single detail unnoticed. She makes sure everything is accounted for.

I kind of want to talk about how shocking everything was, but I feel like that's kind of a given and kind of understating it. There were multiple times where "what the heck" was just running through my head. There were multiple times where I was flabbergasted at what was happening. There were multiple times where I couldn't believe the brilliance of what was happening. Power writes in such a way where I couldn't see how everything could connect, but when everything is explained, it fits so neatly together and makes perfect sense. It's all kinds of incredible.

This book also carries complicated emotions, complicated relationships, and complicated family dynamics. It takes a long, close look at generational trauma. Margot wants to find out where she belongs in the world and who she belongs too. The answers she finds are not the answers she wanted. Her emotional journey was one that was so full and so well done. It spans the entire book and it just hits every single beat it tries too, at the exact right time.

I fell in love with Margot. It was gradual, and before I knew it, I was completely in love with her. I loved her mind. I just loved her as a whole. She was a fantastic character and such a great narrator for this story. She was also a lesbian! Though, that was not the main part of her story, but I love casually queer characters.

There were also lots of side characters, who I thought were just side characters, but they all actually have their own special role. It was a cool dynamic. I ended up liking them all a whole lot more than I thought I was going to.

Gosh, I want to find the right words to describe how amazing this book is, but I'm not sure if those words exist. It was horrifying, it was gut wrenching, it was uncomfortable, it was unnerving, it was incredibly smart, and it was so well executed. I want to talk about every single thing this book offered, but that delves into spoiler territory. Just know that this book is all kinds of incredible and I will still read whatever Power decides to write.

I was hesitant to request this one, given the mixed reviews of Rory Power’s debut novel, Wilder Girls, which I didn’t read. Now I’m considering giving it a try, because this book? This book is a masterpiece. The older I get, the harder it is for me to find young adult fiction that still appeals to me, and I feel a little giddy every time I get to add a new book to the list of YA favorites.

Burn Our Bodies Down comes right out of the gate with a startlingly realistic portrayal of abuse and neglect. Protagonist Margot’s mother is an infuriating character. It wrecked me to witness how Margot’s toxic upbringing impacted every aspect of her life. I especially appreciated how Power explored the way abusers use gaslighting to win arguments and make their victims doubt their own experiences and reality.

Power gives us a well-written, relatable protagonist in Margot. She was remarkably sympathetic and refreshingly complicated. Her first person narration had me experiencing the story as she experienced it, feeling her emotions along with her, desperate to find the truth just like she was. Margot is a lesbian, and her sexuality was never the focus of the story, instead just one part of what made her, her. It felt so natural and right.

Overall, Burn Our Bodies Down is incredibly well-paced, with short chapters and a great flow. Power uses the small town setting of Phalene and the interactions between her characters to build a growing sense of unease, a feeling you can’t shake but you can’t pin down, that something is off. I kept wanting to shout, “WHAT IS GOING ON?” and I had to keep reading until I found out. And the ending… wow.

This book has the potential to appeal to a wide audience, including adults who don’t usually go for YA. I only had one minor complaint. I’ll keep it vague to avoid spoilers, but there’s a part in the story where Margot reads someone’s diary entries, and the writing style of the entries, with no capitalization or punctuation and lots of repetition, was annoying. But there weren’t too many entries and they were mostly very short, so I haven’t let it affect my rating.