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.

Wow. I couldn’t have asked for a better thriller! Perfect for admirers of Riley Sager, Burn Our Bodies Down is a superbly-crafted, spine-tingling novel of suspense about a teenager who learns about the evil lurking within the blood lines in her family history.

“It’s just you and me”, 17-year-old Margot’s mother keeps on telling her, so when she stumbles upon a photograph that proves otherwise, pointing her to her mother’s hometown, she begins her journey towards Phalene- towards the family she‘s been denied all these years. Except, when she gets there, things are much more disturbing than she could ever imagine, and a quest for truth suddenly becomes a quest for survival.

Will Margot discover the truth about her family history?
Is it too late for her to escape?

I feel like if you combine the powers of the atmosphere from Sharp Objects, Riley Sager’s storytelling skills, in addition to mesmerizing prose, this book would be the result. I thought that the relationships between the characters are created with such careful precision and the author uses that to unsettle and intrigue the reader.

And the ending...brace yourself for one heck of a revelation - disturbing and incredibly epic! The author doesn’t stop there - she keeps your heart racing with a killer series of events that lead towards the end. I had a hand over my mouth the entire time, rooting for our protagonist Margot Nielsen as she unravels the mysteries of Fairhaven. Burn Our Bodies Down is an absolute must-read!

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.

Thank you Publisher and NetGalley for this early novel!

I'm one of the few who did not read Wilder Girls in 2019 but now I will be picking it up and more from this new and upcoming auther. I was able to guess part of the big twist but enjoyed how the mystery was weaved by Power. It was an intense and quick read for me.

Full Review Coming Soon!

This is an absolutely incredible thriller with gut-punch writing that leaves you guessing until the very end. There are so many lines that put a mountain of feeling into a few words. The portrayal of trauma and emotional abuse is impeccable, and Margot is a perfectly flawed girl trying to find her way. The plot itself is solid through and through, with twists and turns throughout that build nicely on each other. I had to tear through this in a couple days because I was dying to know what happened, what it was all leading to, and wow wow wow. Just amazing.

BURN OUR BODIES DOWN is a story about how far we'll go and how much we'll forgive just for the word "family".

Rory Power has a formula for her books that I absolutely love. Engaging mystery, girls that don't know how to deal with their emotions, a speculative light sci-fi twist, and writing that is beautiful and poetic. BURN OUR BODIES DOWN follows this formula, but Margot's journey to discover her family's past hit home with me. I was able to relate to Margot and her mother a lot as characters. The mystery Rory's built here is compelling and kept me questioning every character's actions (except Eli, my sweet baby).

I know that WILDER GIRLS has sort of become my Brand™️, and I love both WG and Corn Book equally, but in different ways. I think if WG didn't work for you, this one probably won't either. I do think Rory has improved a lot on many fronts, but I know many people had problems with the open ending, the distant characters, and the poetic writing. Those things are still present, but I feel like that's how you know you're reading a Rory Power book.

I’m seeing the stars! THIS IS…. THIS BOOK… THIS STORY… THI…TH…T… I lost the words! Please somebody tell me my lines! Oh boy, weklcjoj4ffejewoi! Oh no, I lost my cognitive skills! I lost my brain! I lost my mind! I lost my mouth! Oh no, how can drink wine without my mouth? Who is talking now? Did I become a ventriloquist?
WHAT THE HELL I JUST READ!!!

I carry three heads right now! I hold something in my hands: a secret recipe of the best mind bending novel I’ve read lately.

Here is the formula: We have a table spoon “Children of Corn” and stir it with two cups of “Sharp Objects” and add some Stephen King and Paul Tremblay’s eerie, spooky, earth shattering, mind crushing thriller elements, mix it with literature’s most batshit crazy mother-daughter dysfunctional relationships starting from Carrie
White and Margaret White to Beloved’s Sethe and her spirit daughter. And then cook it over a fire! And let’s sing the DISCO INFERNO’S “Burn baby burn” chorus, then continue with “come on baby light my fire”! But be careful not to be burned!

And let’s talk about this unconventional, complex, mind spinning plot:

Margot is her last days of 18 and she has a dysfunctional, unhealthy, weird, dependent, a kind of obsessed and sick relationship with her mother. I’m not sure if Margot is the real mother and her mother Jo already lost her marbles from the beginning, having no idea how to raise a kid.

Margot feels trapped and save herself from their party of two lives and bring more family members into the equation. But her mother rejects to give her any information about their family history. And one day Margot accidentally finds out she has a grandmother who lives at the weirdest town that the world already forgot it existed, named Phalene. She thinks she found her missing piece, a real opportunity to have a big family including lots of stupid cousins, gossiping aunts, wanker uncles, okay I’m kidding, of course she wants to be a part of real family and make changes with her life so she questions her mother to learn more but she still keeps her mother shut. Margot finally decides she’ll learn everything from her own way!

And as soon as she takes her first step to the eerie, ominous town waiting in silence the storm’s coming (or let’s say the big fire’s approaching!) she meets with Tess and Eli and finds out her grandmother’s land on fire.
When she reaches her house, she sees a girl lying motionless. As soon as she saves her from fire, she realizes the girl looks just like her and she is dead! And the officers catch her besides the girl think she is responsible from the fire and the girl’s dead.

But don’t worry! Grandmother the dearest comes to the station and berates the officers for frightening her granddaughter the sweetest. So Margot goes to the house of grandmother the sneakiest and she finally finds out she already opened dozen cans of worms! She slowly absorbs the secret structure of their family history.

And I stop right here… because after Margot’s arrival at grandmother’s house, this book turns into something breathtaking, astonishing, grey cell terminator, shocking, twisty, surprising, explicit but also dark, wild, terrifying.

I kept mumbling to myself : ‘WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF!” and my husband found me at the living room, sitting on the floor, numb, saliva dripping down my mouth, pale, eyes widened as if I’d seen first 27 minutes of “Saving Private Ryan” over and over again!

THIS IS SOOOO CRAZY, NASTY, MIND SPINNING EXPERIENCE and I liked every word, sentence, page, ink of it!

I enjoyed the “Wilder Girls” but for the love of mind-bending books, this is so unexpectedly splendid masterpiece and I highly recommend the readers who like something extra ordinary, different, out of your comfort zone! Rory Power rises and shines with this fast pacing, surprising novel!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Delacorte Press for sharing this incredible ARC COPY with me in exchange my honest review. I LOVED IT SO MUCH!

Burn Our Bodies Down is the second book from Rory Power and it did not disappoint! This book kept me guessing until the very end.

I was hoping right alongside Margot that she would get the answers she needed and the family she so desperately wanted. With all the twists, I had no idea what was going to happen, which makes for a great thriller. This wasn't the story I was expecting, but it ended up being so good and I really liked it.

Summary:

Ever since Margot was born, it’s been just her and her mother. No answers to Margot’s questions about what came before. No history to hold on to. No relative to speak of. Just the two of them, stuck in their run-down apartment, struggling to get along.

But that’s not enough for Margot. She wants family. She wants a past. And she just found the key she needs to get it: A photograph, pointing her to a town called Phalene. Pointing her home. Only, when Margot gets there, it’s not what she bargained for.

Margot’s mother left for a reason. But was it to hide her past? Or was it to protect Margot from what’s still there? The only thing Margot knows for sure is there’s poison in their family tree, and their roots are dug so deeply into Phalene that now that she’s there, she might never escape.

#NetGalley
#Edelweiss
#BurnOurBodiesDown
Thank you so much for the E-arc copy of Burn Our Bodies Down.
An intense read. If you liked Wilder Girls, then you will get the dark and emotional comparison to it.

This was an interesting book to say the least. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t this. ‘Burn Our Bodies Down’ is a story about Margot who wants to know more about her family. It has always been just her and her mom and her mom seems to surround herself in secrets. It’s only natural for Margot to look for answers as to where they come from, but when she goes to look for those answers, she ends up finding more questions.

I think that Powers has an interesting writing style. It definitely takes a couple of pages to get into it, but as soon as I did the story flowed so well and so quick that I didn’t realize how fast I was reading this book. I would look up from the page and suddenly realize how few I had left. Margot is an interesting character to follow and her entire family is just so mysterious that I couldn’t help but want more.

This certainly read like a horror novel. I don’t know if the clues were obvious on purpose, or I’ve just seen enough horror movies to pick up on the clues, but oh my god! I wanted to shake Margot for not seeing what I was seeing. I think that's what I liked most about this book. It made me so frustrated that I needed to keep turning the page because I just knew something was going to go wrong. Just all the mystery that kept being stacked on top of another mystery and it all surrounded this family!

I was expecting the end but not the way it happened. I honestly still cant get over what I just read.

Rory Power is unstoppable. It could be confirmation bias, I wanted to like this so I did, but that doesn't account for the spine-tingly, what just happened irl because my head was a million miles away in a book, genuinely gripping feel of the thing.