Young adult suspense fiction is so rare! Pair it with empowering LGBT themes and dope as hell sapphic characters, you've got a winner.

She’s Too Pretty to Burn is exciting and thrilling. A story filled with young passion and so many fires. I’m left with an eery feeling as I write this.

I was incredibly excited when I saw that my wish had been granted for this book. The beautiful cover and the fact that this is a YA sapphic thriller(!!!) really got my hopes up. I really believed I was going to love this book, but it just wasn’t for me.

This book has a very interesting premise. The prologue was gripping. However, I quickly began to lose interest as the story progressed. I kept getting the two main characters, Veronica and Mick, confused. I often forgot whose point-of-view I was reading from and mixed up their backstories. They just weren’t memorable, and I never felt any attachment to them. In addition, their relationship was very insta-lovey, and I didn’t like how quickly it developed. I just didn’t think they had much chemistry.

About the writing: it was okay—pretty basic, and I personally like writing styles that are a little more flowery and descriptive.

The first third of this story flew by, but it didn’t feel like anything actually happened. It failed to keep my attention, and by the halfway mark, when the mystery finally kicked in, I simply did not care. In addition, this story would have benefited if the major events were a little more...intense? I wanted action that left my heart-pounding, a story that kept me guessing, but it didn’t deliver.

Perhaps others may find this book to be more enjoyable, but I personally wasn’t a fan.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the eARC.

Wow, What a book.
Mick meets Veronica at a party and the adventure begins. Veronica is a photographer and she takes a pictures of Mick that ends up going viral on Instagram. Mick is a camera shy swimmer who has a complicated relationship with her mother. Veronica's friend Nico is a bit of an extreme artist with his own agenda. Soon Veronica and Mick are on a wild ride that they are not sure how it will all end when things continue to get out of control.
Overall, I thought this book was wonderful. It was a fast and easy read that had me hanging on until the very end.
Thank you NetGalley for giving me an advanced copy of this book.

Wow! After reading the last third of the book by holding my e-reader with my shaky hands, puffing, sweating, jumping up and down from my seat, I feel like I ran a marathon!

This is impressive dedication and realistic, present time reflection of Picture of Dorian Gray! It’s about the beauty, ecstatic, art, passion, forbidden love, secrets, longing for divine beauty and seeing and admiring it through the lenses of your camera.

Passion triangle around Veronica-Nico and Mick is definitely the great retelling, a new reflection of Basil-Henry-Dorian’s dysfunctional relationship patterns.

Veronica and Nico are best friends, but their passion for art, photography always comes first. Nico is controlling, manipulative just like Henry who liked to affect people’s opinions ( especially Dorian) with his impressive argumentative skills.

But Veronica is already looking for something different, bored with his husband-wife kind of routine relationship with Nico. One day her path crosses with shiny, adorable Mick. Just like Basil’s adoration to the beauty of Dorian, she gets enchanted by her magical beauty and their whirlwind, sexy, adventurous love story begins. But... they’re doomed with the tragedies. One fire... two murders... three drowning bodies.

Expect to get surprised, because there are so many foreseeable twists will blow your mind!
I’m not giving any more clues not to ruin those surprises! A very fast pacing, heart throbbing and jaw dropping adventure is waiting for you. Buckle up! Get ready!

It’s not a retelling of a legendary classic. The references and reflections of original text is such a fabulous truth and we may sense how it inspired the author’s riveting, exciting writing.

Overall: I enjoyed a lot. One of the most surprising reads of the year. Go blind and enjoy it!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co / Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group.

Thank out to Netgalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Holy shit holy shit holy shit. What a BOOK. I was honestly worried I was losing my taste for thrillers because I haven’t read any good ones lately, but this changed my mind. Really strong 4.5, but I gotta give it 5 because no decimals, unfortunately. This book was fantastic. The only reason it’s not a full 5 is because it felt a little bit insta-love which bugged me a little, but not enough to be a big issue. These characters??? Fantastic! The plot??? Fantastic! A sapphic modern Dorian Grey-inspired thriller??? BRILLIANT AS HELL. I was so deeply connected to Mick’s story and relationship with her mom and her development, as well as Veronica and her, well, whole existence, really. This story had me hooked from the beginning all the way to the end. I’m thankful to the book gods for granting my ARC wish, this book absolutely blew me away.

Two girls' lives are changed forever as they tackle secrets and dangers around the corner. It kind of reminds me of One of Us is Lying and I love how good it was!

Electric. Vibrant. Scorching. Meticulously written. This book is going to set the YA world on fire upon its release and I can’t wait to watch it burn up the best sellers charts!

I finished this book in just a few short hours, because once I started reading it, I was mesmerized, much like seeing a fire turn from a small flicker into a raging inferno right before your eyes.

I was in a bit of a reading slump before picking up this book, but reading slump be damned because i was HOOKED. the writing in this book is so vibrant and electric. It’s like driving through the city at night with your friends, the entire night stretched out in front of you with the lights of the city alive and glowing around you, the anticipation of what’s to come next thrumming through your veins. There’s a sense of danger in the air, and it’s both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. Reading about these characters was intoxicating and thrilling and I was both excited and petrified to see where they would end up.

Wendy Heard is one of the most talented new authors that I have come across recently, and her writing is some of the best that I have read in a while. Her characters were so very real and vibrant and alive, they practically thrived right off of the pages. It was so easy to lose myself in this story and the characters in it.

This book was also very unique in the sense that of all the books i’ve read (and i’ve read many) I can honestly say that i’ve never read anything quite like it. It was fresh and real and the YA market is in for a real treat in 2021 due to this book.

The relationship and love between Mick and Veronica was so sweet and it unfolded beautifully as the story progressed.

I felt the danger, the thrill, the terror, the excitement, the sorrow and love that these characters were feeling right alongside them.

This is a book about struggles. About the intoxicating thrill of adventure and danger. About love. About friendship. About relationships in all of their forms, whether it be romantic, friendly, or familial. About people’s true natures, and who they really are deep down in their core.

This book is one hell of a scorcher, and you will be missing out on something spectacular if you don’t pick this one up!!

5 out 5 fiery burning stars!!

***Thank you to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of SHE’S TOO PRETTY TO BURN by Wendy Heard in exchange for my honest review.***

5 THRILLINGEST STARS (thrillingest needs to become a word because SHE’S TOO PRETTY TO BURN is such a book)

Shy awkward Mick, high school swimmer and daughter of a narcissistic mother meets and falls in love with photography phenom Veronica. V’s best friend and shadow, tagalong Nico, who has a propensity for blurring the lines between art and domestic terrorism, accepts Mick into his inner pranks-gone-wrong circle. The three dance on the edges of love, friendship and violence as people start dying.

As a fan of Wendy Heard’s adult thrillers, so when I learned she was debuting a YA novel, I was eager to read. SHE’S TOO PRETTY TO BURN is one of the best, most thrilling thrillers I’ve ever read. It’s a true thriller, not a mystery falsely advertised as such.

Heard challenged me as a reader to get past some biases I have that usually turn me off. What appeared to be Veronica and Mick’s instalove was more insta unbridled passion. The love between the young women wasn’t gentle and tender, as I’ve come to expect. Their kisses were often unexpected, abrupt and rough which reminded me of the romances Kalinda from TV’s THE GOOD WIFE. She’s a bisexual investigator whose many romances mirrored Veronica and Mick’s. A decade ago, I saw Kalinda’s romances as abusive. Mick and Veronica made me realize because it was consensual, the roughness was merely a different style than me. I can’t remember the last time a book gave me such a personal insight.

SHE’S TOO PRETTY TO BURN touched me in other personal ways. Some of the scenes between Mick and horrible mother could have been directly from scenes from my childhood with my father, almost as if Heard had been an observer. Let any reader who finds it over-the-top send me an email.

Both Veronica and Mick were complex, flawed characters. I identified more with Mick, yet understood Veronica’s artistic ambitions even though her choices wouldn’t have been mine. My favorite character was Veronica’s wonderful mom. I loved their relationship and how she was open-minded, sex-positive yet she had boundaries and appropriate anger toward bad behavior.

SHE’S TOO PRETTY TO BURN is pretty much the perfect thriller. I can’t wait to listen to the audio when it’s available.