Burn Our Bodies Down is Rory Power's second book and I loved her debut novel, Wilder Girls, so I was thrilled to be able to read her new book. Burn Our Bodies Down follows Margot as she lives with her abusive mother in an isolated lifestyle that is fraught with arguments and no family or friends. Margot stumbles across an old bible that she believes is her mother's and finds a way to contact her previously unknown grandmother. Margot then leaves her mother and runs to her grandmother and upon arriving at the farm, Margot finds the corn field on fire and the body of a girl that looks exactly like her among the stalks. Margot soon discovers that her mother may have actually been protecting her from something sinister at the farm.

One of the reasons I liked Wilder Girls so much was because of the characters and I also liked the horror aspects and I expected this book to have a similar vein of body horror. There were moments of body horror (the peaches!!) it just didn't have the same emotional impact because Margot was not as well developed of a character in my opinion. She felt a little underdeveloped and her actions seemed to not match the inner narrative of her character. The reveal also felt a bit rushed at the end and was quite out there in terms of believability. I like Power's writing style though - it is often sparse but still impactful but in this case it might have made it harder to understand Margot's motivations. Overall, I much preferred Wilder Girls but I would recommend this book to teens that liked Wilder Girls and like the more existential aspects of horror. I will also continue to read Rory Power's books even though I didn't really fall in love this one.

Thank you, Netgalley, for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

OK, let me start by saying this: whoever decided to give this an MPG Horror classification has clearly never read really good horror books. While there were some elements that were a bit frightening, it wasn't scary enough to qualify as horror. To be honest, R. L. Stine's books are scarier than this one.

But anyway, that didn't make this book any less interesting for me to read. I love reading books with morally grey and/or semi-nutty characters with secrets and flaws. This book had that. The plot was also quite interesting. I'm not the kind of reader who loves it when 2/3 of the book cover world and character building. This book got right to action and intertwined the character building with the different events and scenes. I wouldn't say that this book would be a book I'd grab in case our house was on fire, but I would definitely mourn its loss ;-)

Rory Power strikes again! Though not as good as Wilder Girls, this one is a great horror pick for teens.

I received a complimentary advanced ebook and advanced audiobook of Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power from Delacorte Press through Netgalley. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Burn Our Bodies Down came out in July 2020!
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Margot has never known any family other than her mother. Her mother refuses to answer any questions about her past or where she came from. Their small life in a run-down apartment isn't enough for Margot. She wants a family and family history. When she finds a photo in her mother's bible, Margot finally has the information she needs to find out more. The photograph draws her to a town called Phalene where Margot will discover her family's dark secret and the reason her mother left and never looked back.
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I read part of this one, but I mainly listened to it on audio. This story and Rory Power's haunting prose lend themselves well to audio. It was hard to stop listening. Like Wilder Girls, this story has a more contemporary setting but it has a fantastical, scifi sort of aspect to it. It took me a while to work out my feelings about this one and I'm not sure I completely have, but overall I think it's a good YA horror novel. I felt like there wasn't much that happened in this story though. We spend a lot of time in Margot's head and the events are slow to unfold. Still, the audio format worked well with that and I would definitely recommend listening to the audiobook! Trigger warning for violence and gore!

Buzzwords/Keywords- small town, lying characters, twisted family and dead bodies.

I was excited to pick this up since it's not my usual genre and I wanted to try something from Rory Power. Unfortunately it was just ok for me. While the story was written great and it was fast paced most of the time, it did drag at times and that caused me to put it down. I definitely enjoyed the first half of the book, after the first half it was just confusing and felt like things started happening out of nowhere. However, maybe I missed something to where I was confused. I would say it has horror elements but not true horror however, maybe it can't be true horror due to it being YA. I wished it would have been more thriller than "horror". I did like the small town vibes because I was able to visualize what was going on in the book in my mind!
I did still buy a copy of the book to support the author! I would more than likely pick up anything she writes next.

Sorry this is extremely late, life got in the way no excuses but thank you so much for this e arc!

<i>Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!</i>

<i>Burn Our Bodies Down</i> by Rory Power follows a young woman, named Margot, as she discovers what came before it was just her and her mother. Before I say anything else, I want to say that it took me ~4 months to read this book at no fault of its own. It's all the COVID brain, I promise. Not only that, but it also took me a little less than a month to write this review. *major facepalm* Anywho, now that we've gotten those embarrassing facts out of the way, let's talk about what I thought of <i>Burn Our Bodies Down</i>.

I'm not going to lie.....I was disappointed. I went into Rory Power's sophomore novel hoping it would fulfill just the itty-bitty, teeny-tiny bit that Wilder Girls was lacking for me. Now, is that my fault for comparing the two? Maybe, but sadly, I was just let down. Does that tell you anything about the actual contents and merit of the book? Absolutely not, but I will say, if you read Wilder Girls and loved it as much as I did, but you were hoping for just a little something more...unfortunately, this book just is not it. However, as long as you're able to separate the two, I think <i>Burn Our Bodies Down</i> is still 100% worth the read, as long as you appreciate Rory's creepy and weird mind as much as I do!

I'll admit I was a bit disappointed by this one. I really enjoyed Powers' last book and was excited to see what she came up with next! Things felt a little rushed and disjointed, especially the ending, and it almost felt like the plot was trying to do too many things. It starts mysterious but ends very scifi and that wasn't an expected genre twist. If I had any student patrons who were intrigued in that kind of genre, I might recommend it to them, but I wouldn't suggest it primarily.

Margot is tired of not getting answers from her mother about where she came from and the history of their family. When she finds an old picture with the name of a town on it, she leaves immediately to find the answers she craves. However, once she arrives, something in the town is off. Something with her grandmother is off. And if Margot wants answers, she will have to face scary truths about just where she comes from and why her mom left.

One of my favorite parts of BURN OUR BODIES DOWN is the theme of generational problems. What someone's parents or grandparents or great-grandparents thought they could ignore or get rid of can continue to haunt future generations. Even when someone, like Margot's mom, decides to try to separate herself from the narrative, she can't fully escape it. In Margot's journey, she learns that if you want truth, you have to be prepared for the good and the bad (and in some cases, the evil). Though there are plenty things to give you the creeps (like the weird corn stalks or the death of someone no one in a small town recognizes), human evil is the biggest scare of all.

I enjoyed the narrator and particularly the way they used different voices for each character. They were all nicely distinct, even in scenes where several people are in a conversation. At times, the narrator got a bit melodramatic for a scene, but overall, it was fun to listen.

BURN OUR BODIES DOWN is a solid sophomore novel from Rory Powers, perfect for people who want the hard gray areas of a Courtney Summers novel but with more creepiness.

The writing in Burn Our Bodies Down was great and the original story line was refreshing. Although, I feel like the story line wasn't very clear until the very end of the book. I found myself getting frustrated throughout the story because i felt like the main character, Margo, was being overly dramatic about her dysfunctional relationship with her mom. It would have been great if the sci-fi elements could have some how been weaved into the story.

The premise of the story was original and that was cool, to have a new idea in a YA book.

I would love a prequel of this book!

Thank you to #NetGalley for an advanced copy of #BurnOurBodiesDown in exchange my my honest opinion.

Burn Our Bodies Down is a fantastic book for people who love a creepy thriller and teen angst at the same time. Rory Power has not failed to thrill her readers again!

Margot Neilson doesn’t know where she comes. For her whole life, she has just had her mom, well, not exactly a mom who is reliable, a mom who is loving, a mom who cares for her kid more than herself. She seems to take care of her mom more than her mom took care of her. Then, one day she finds a clue to her family that her mom won’t talk about and things turn from there. The people that Margot meets on her journey to finding her family are not what you would expect, not who they say there are, and are utterly, deliciously page-turning drivers!

Ms. Powers creates a world of intrigue, confusion, and thrill. Her characters are fresh, believable, and yet, so otherworldly, you are not sure you really where you are. Yes, this is a book for Young Adults, but Adults will love, love, love this book too. This book reminds me a twinge of Nothing To See Here by Kevin Wilson just by the intrigue, and unusual fire background. If you liked Nothing to See Here or Ms. Power's freshman novel Wilder Girls this book is for you.

P.S. Don’t read this book at bedtime unless you want to have nightmares like I did… 😉

4.5 Stars!

Thanks, NetGalley, Random House Children’s, and author Rory Powers for the opportunity to read this book in lieu of my honest review.

I thought this was really well done. Eco horror, body horror, generational trauma, and an exploration of what it means to be your own person vs. be connected/belong to family... I loved this.

Rory Power's chunky, artsy prose bothered me initially, but either I acclimated or the writing became more fluid as the story progressed.

I feel like I was expecting more horror elements in this story, so my high expectations dampened my experience. This was a solid tale, full of mystery and family intrigue and a definite creepy factor, it just didn't pack the same punch that Wilder Girls did. The structure of the narrative felt like the one long "Huh?" from the main character with not much happening in between the setup of the plot and the resolution happening within the last couple of chapters. A little disappointed but I would still recommend.

Thank you to netgalley for providing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

I don't think Rory Power's writing is for me. I was very excited for Wilder Girls but it fell flat and I DNFed it, I did the same to this one. The story is slow and I couldn't connect with the main character, Margot though I do like that it was written in the first person. Rory Power's is stories are 'bizarre' in an uninteresting way and in a chopping writing style.

Rory Power's writing always sparks, and I was compelled by each sentence of her latest novel. The dynamics she explores between generations of women and the secrets they're keeping propelled me from start to finish, and the creepy small town, corn-surrounded setting made this a perfect eerie autumnal read!

Rory Power's Burn Our Bodies Down is gritty, haunting, and disturbing--one of the best thrilling YA novels I've ever read. Centered around a family mystery, this thriller has everything you're looking for in a good story: twists and turns, complex and flawed characters, intriguing relationships, toxic storytelling, and an atmospheric setting. I highly recommend this one if you enjoy dark, moody reads.

WOW! This book....just...so creepy!

Initial thoughts on this book were that it was very watered down horror and more suspense than anything else. Which is OK in my book. I enjoyed the twists and turns and the ultimate reveal so much that I still think back on it after having finished this weeks ago.

This was an intense read. I'm not much for thrillers but I enjoyed this. The grave scene was very disturbing. But that wasn't the only disturbing imagery. This is a perfect Halloween read.

A brief summary: Margot, daughter of a dysfunctional mother and an unknown family history, returns to her mother’s hometown and gets more than she bargained for as she unravels her family’s mysterious past.

My thoughts: I went in to this book knowing nothing about it besides the fact that Powers had written Wilder Girls and I enjoyed that book quite a bit. The pacing of Burn Our Bodies Down started out slow; it is made uncomfortably clear that the main character, Margot, has a poor relationship with her presumably crazy mother but still loves her because it’s all she’s ever known. The book starts to pick up though, and by the end, it was a whirlwind of events and I was obsessed with it.

Overall: The thing is, Margot’s mother has always kept her in the dark about her family’s past – never has she shared anything about possible relatives, always pretending that they don’t exist. Things come to a head when Margot gets fed up and after some snooping, discovers a way to contact her previously unknown grandmother. All of this happens about a third through the book, and the entire time, you really aren’t given enough of Margot to connect with her because it is all written at a superficial level. I struggled to get through the first part of the book simply because of the pacing, but things started to pick up shortly afterward.

Once Margot travels to her mother’s hometown and meets her grandmother, this is where things start to get exciting. Powers builds an intense, gritty, and downright creepy story that Margot must navigate on her own. There are vivid details of the ruins and desolate nature of the small, rundown town in which Margot finds herself, transporting the reader there with her. The description was incredible, and one of my favorite things about this book. We also meet plenty of new characters, but like Margot, we only get to know them on a superficial level. Although it is hinted that Margot is part of the LGBT community, the plot is never fully developed, and dropped rather quickly from the story (sometimes it was hinted at with one of the friends that Margot makes, but only as a passing thought, rather than as anything substantial).

It is really the last 20 percent of the book that becomes utterly phenomenal, and made the book worth reading. The whirlwind of mystery, suspense, and thrills come to a head at the end of the book, and for me personally, swept me off my feet. I did NOT see any of the events coming, and I loved it. You had the shock value, you had the climax, and you had your resolution. It would have been nice to see it paced out throughout the book a little, but I did end up enjoying how quickly things escalated.

Overall, I felt this was a decent book. I probably would have been ecstatic over it as a teenager, honestly. As an adult though, I would have liked to see more substantial character development, and better adjusted pacing. If you liked Wilder Girls, you will probably enjoy this one too though!

Rory Power sure can write horror. Like Wilder Girls, this was set in a world like ours, only more twisted, more disturbed. The horror shown, isn't cheap jump scares--it's more an atmosphere of creeping suspense.

Burn Our Bodies Down is going to be a hit with the Young Adult audience it targets. It has that creep factor along with a touch of horror. It really does give me Jordan Peele vibes. Teenagers and the likes are going to eat this up like Candy on Halloween.

However, I think that the plot is also a little obvious. There is literally very little else that could be going on. So the element of surprise or the big reveal wasn’t that exciting for me. It was more of an affirmation. Unfortunately, I think only the densest of readers will big shocked over the answer to the weirdness.

I do think this story was a big improvement from her debut. Power certainly showed growth. But she also showed some novice writing errors that should have been addressed by the publisher really. For example, our narrator has some girl crush vibes that amount to literally nothing. It really made little to no sense to introduce this without any plot or movement on it. Was it to score some points? Not sure. But this whole situation fell incredibly flat deeming it pointless.

Overall, I think the target audience is going to go wild for this. But those outliers might find some faults in the plot being pretty blatant.