One kiss can ignite a chain of events.
🔥
It was a normal day at school when a fire began. Twins Immie and Arch and their best friend Paige are on shaky ground after one of the siblings kissed Paige’s (now ex) boyfriend. In the midst of trying to repair their friendship a new boy walks into class. Ro is from England, angry that he has to be at this school at all after his father had an affair, causing them to leave London for LA. Ro’s presence throws off the dynamic in the group and sparks a competition between Immie and Paige, but beneath all romance lies teens filled with anger, hurt, anxiety, fear and more. If they’re not careful, they’ll all burn.
🔥
I am a new fan of @juliebuxbaum after reading Admission last year and loving it so when I saw she had a new book I snapped it up and read it in one day! What a diverse and important YA novel for teens struggling with family issues, friendships, relationship woes and mental health concerns. I absolutely love the cover and really liked the alternating POV chapters.
CW: anxiety, arson, adultery, alcohol, physical abuse, emotional abuse

Year on Fire is set in at the same high school as Tell Me Three Things. Arch and Immie Gibson, twins, attend Wood Valley High School in Los Angeles. Paige, Immie's best friend since middle school always has Immie's back. Immie ended up taking the blame for something that Arch did in the past that changed her friendship with Paige.

Upon the junior year of high school, Immie meets Ro, a transfer student from London, England. Immie can't explain the feeling she has when she thinks about Ro. Is it because of the circumstances on how they met that creates this attachment or is it something more? After all, they did meet during a school fire. However, Paige already has her eyes set on Ro. Meanwhile, Arch is exploring his sexuality and is gauging how people will react with his coming out.

Year on Fire is split into four POVS, allowing readers to delve into the thoughts of Immie, Arch, Ro and Paige. The writing is distinct enough to tell the difference between each character and readers gain knowledge of multiple perspectives regarding similar situations. This coming-of-age story showcases the different teens as they figure out what it means to be a young adult. They navigate friendships, love, betrayal, jealously, secrets, family issues, mental health, etc. The physical fires in the novel are metaphorically representing the fires of the lives of the teens. Let's say there is a lot of teen drama going on.

What I love is how Julie Buxbaum interweaves her previous books with this one. I am a huge fan of Tell Me Three Lies so of course I was excited to see reference of Wood Valley High. We also homage to Baby Hope indirectly from Hope and Other Punchlines.

Lies, privilege, and family drama combine into one explosive novel from Julie Buxbaum.
In Year on Fire, friend group Paige, Arch, and Immie have their lives turned upside down days before the first day of Junior year by a single kiss. When the girl’s bathroom is set aflame and rumors of arson start swirling, the three quickly realize that the lies that bind are wilder and bigger than a single stolen kiss.

Told in alternating points of view, this riveting novel boasts a well-paced plot, great character development, a slow burn romance complete with hands accidentally brushing (swoon), and mental health representation to top it all off.

The plot is a mix of solving the arsonist mystery, watching the pressure build to the point of an unraveling of one character, and the romantic drama that lies beneath the surface of many high school friend groups. The balance between the primary plot and the secondary plots is well done, as each chapter break and narrator switch leaves the reader both wanting more from that character, and excited to read to the next narrator.
Arch and Immie are twins that are equally alike and different, finishing each others sentences and yet still frequently being confounded by their other half. Paige is an only child living a lonely life with two overly successful individuals as her perennially absent parents. Ro has just been moved across that Atlantic ocean against his will, and serves to unknowingly risk worsening the splinter in the friendship group. The diverse characters and exploration of relatable themes such as first crushes, friendship fractures, coming out, hiding unsavory parts of one’s life, and forbidden romance are all given due course through these characters.
The slow burn romances are the result of forbidden love and the irresistible pull of finding someone you click with, and serve as a wonderful addition to this novel. The romantic aspects serve a backseat to the friendship plot, which is always refreshing, and it was also nice to see healthy teen relationships portrayed.
Though there’s plenty of depth, the novel never feels unbearably heavy, despite tackling heavy topics such as domestic abuse, isolation, self-harm, and more that I’ll leave out to avoid spoilers. The character that needs help regarding their mental health shows not only the danger of unchecked issues but also the empowerment that comes from seeking help. Year on Fire also serves as an important reminder that families are not always what they seem.

Year on Fire is available now. Thank you to Julie Buxbaum, NetGalley, Random House Children’s and Delacorte Press for an advanced ebook such that I could share my honest opinions.

This is a wonderful coming of age book geared for young adults but enjoyable for any age. Told in the alternating points of view of four 16 year old who are juniors at a prestigious high school in Los Angeles. Arch and Immie are twins that have a stressful home life but are always there for each other. Paige is their best friend who has her own stress filled life at home and school. Ro is the new boy in the group after moving to Los Angeles from London with his Dad. These characters are written very realistically and their adolescent problems are sadly very relevant these days.
This book started off a bit slow but as I got to know the characters I truly started to enjoy it thoroughly. It tackles hard topics such as sexuality, friendships, family dynamics, betrayal, and mental health in a very realistic way. I may be being selfish because I was not ready to say goodbye to these characters but I wish there were a couple of more chapters toward the end to wrap up the storylines better. But even with the slow beginning and the quickly wrapped up ending I highly recommend this superb book.
I am extremely grateful to Delacourte Press/Random House Children's Books and Netgalley for an egalley of this book in exchange for a honest review.

This book was better the more I read it. I don’t love writing in third person so I think that is where I took longer to care about the characters more. A lot of great, real topics for teens in this.

This was a good, unique story overall. However, I had a really hard time keeping up with who, what, when, where ... maybe just a personal preference regarding the character names and changes in POV but I found myself a little confused and re-reading choppy paragraphs often.

With that said though, this was an interesting coming-of-age story with hot topics regarding sexuality, family drama and other things that weigh on high schoolers.

I had a hard time meshing with Paige but I really liked the twin characters of Immie and Arch and their level of loyalty to eachother.

In summary: I have mixed feelings but someone in the high school age range might see this differently and enjoy it even more!

I was provided a copy of the book through TBR and Beyond as a tour participant. I voluntarily read and reviewed it. All opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed this YA Contemporary. It was fun having multiple POV’s. Each character we meet in Year on Fire has some internal struggles going on and I appreciated having the different POV’s to help feel what each person was going through.

I thought the experiences of each character felt genuine. Being a teenager is difficult and most of the time is spent trying to figure yourself out or what you want to do when you get through high school. It felt authentic for each one of them to have some kind of internal struggle going on and to have kept it hidden. Friendships also change a lot in those last few years of high school and I thought Buxbaum did a great job of portraying those changes.

This was not as emotionally impactful as other books I’ve read by Buxbaum but I still enjoyed it. I would recommend this to anyone looking for their next YA Contemporary!

<p><i> “That was one of the many prices we paid to be human: the bitter acceptance that we’d never truly know the people we love best.” <i><p>

I actually ending up really enjoy this book. The first few chapters don’t fully give away the how the book will end being like and are more so superficial. We meet the four main characters, Immi and and Arch, the twins. Paige, their best friend. And Rohan, the new kid from London. The plot starts after the aftermath of a kiss. Immi takes the blame for her brother kissing Paige’s boyfriend Jackson. Immi feels guilty (even though she hasn’t actually kissed him) and is trying to get things to go back to normal with Paige, which means when she calls dibs on the new kid, Immi backs off and tries not to get involved with him. On the outside this seems like a very cut and dry ya novel about life during high school, which it is but the depth into each character the book goes into had me hooked. Learning about Immi and Arch’s problems at home and their inability to talk about it both at home with each other or with Paige and instead pretend like it’s not really happening, and excusing it away till now that is. Rohan is dealing with his own family issues after his dad has cheated on his mom and they both come to California when his dad gets a job opportunity while his mom stays behind. He’s bitter about being here and away from his mom and friends but he’s still a kind person and becomes closer with the trio, especially Immi. And Paige, she is such a complex person. I would be so irritated with her especially in the beginning but seeing past her exterior and learning about her lifestyle and loneliness made me empathize with her. All these characters find a breaking point and start to heal.

I really enjoyed many of the individual relationships and friendships. Immi and Arch ofc are there at the top. This brother sister twin duo was everything. The way the care about each and know each other like the back of their hands, I adored it. Rohan and Immi were cute as well, twin flames with their outlook on life and wanting to explore and move away. Loved the growth between Paige and the twins as well, as they become honest with each other and let go of past actions and move forwards. Jackson and Arch were also incredibly cute and I wish we saw a little more of them.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. All opinions stated here are my own.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this coming-of-age book about friendship, new love and loyalty. It explores the lives of three different lives and family dynamics through the eyes of four different highschool juniors.

The multiple POVs allow the reader to see both an inside and outside view of the struggles and new experiences these teenagers are involved in both from their own perspectives and what their friends see. What may seem like a perfect life isn’t always true. The expectation to be perfect, or effortlessly cool can hit home differently for each character.

Who they like, what they like, or what's going on with their parents the relationships around them in general is the focal point of this book and I think it was written beautifully. It felt realistic & relatable, even in the setting of LA and its flashy lights & flashy people.

Being a teenager is a rollercoaster in itself, so adding in new love interests, tensions at home, and homesickness for a place thousands of miles away can create a mess of a time, or just might create the perfect recipe to discovering who you really are.

This was adorable! I loved the coming of age themes and the characters which found themselves. I really liked this one for the summer and was a quick read!

When I first saw the email for the Blog tour of Year on Fire I was so intrigued and I had high hopes for it which I am afraid were lowered as I started reading it.

We have 4 POVs of Immie and Arch who are twins, Ro newly arrived from the UK and Paige who was the ultra rich girl . But we also had Jackson and I wished that Jackson was used more in the story.

The premise of the story was about secrets that would literally set things alight but for me it was is this it? . If Julie had cut back the POVs and used the scenario of "the secret" and ran with it I think it would of been a better outcome for the reader.

it was clear to me that Paige was not right and I think again this was only highlighted until we learnt something about her which probably should of been covered throughout the book instead of towards the ending.

For all these reasons I have given Year of Fire 3 stars

Twins Arch and Immie have a secret that they’re keeping from their best friend, Paige. Even without all the details coming to light, it’s driven a major wedge between the three childhood companions. Add in Ro, a new student from the UK that Paige has “claimed” despite his undeniable chemistry with Immie and a string of arson plaguing their school year, and things are really heating up.

Contemporary is not my main genre of choice, but I really enjoy the voices of Julie Buxbaum’s characters. The book title is sometimes literal, thanks to arson and Southern California wildfires, but I really appreciated the figurative nature of it. Buxbaum does a great job capturing the urgency of teenage emotions as their lives and relationships are truly tested for the first time. The stress and pressure is setting their nerves on edge and their personalities on fire in a way that I definitely remember feeling in high school, and I really loved that.

I don’t think the story requires all four characters to be a narrator— Arch and Immie probably would have sufficed— but each character maintains their own distinct voice well. Paige’s story was the hardest to connect to, because it’s steeped in a type of entitlement and neglect that can only exist among the hyper-privileged, but there were times I felt for even her. Ro was sufficiently charming and a great look at the complicated dynamics between teens and parents when adults force something like a major relocation upon their child. I wasn’t wildly attached to any of them, but I found all of them interesting in their own way.

[TW: Abuse] The handling of one particular topic in this novel left a bad taste in my mouth: Arch and Immie’s dad. The twins repeatedly say something along the lines of “He’s an asshole, but he’s not abusive,” then go on to describe a string of emotional and sometimes physical abuse. He goes ballistic at every perceived slight. He punches walls and breaks things. He grabs their mother so hard she bruises. Teens have some sense of nuance and I refuse to think two smart ones like Arch and Immie think that only hitting someone constitutes abuse. There's a scene toward the end of the novel where Arch asks his mother— who suffers the brunt of the abuse— why she never left. She says they're too codependent and she never will, even after her kids are out of the house. Arch doesn't question this much and it's treated as an "it is what it is" moment. I hate the approach to this behavior so much.

Year on Fire packed a lot of realistic emotion in a fairly short book, giving us a look at four different characters lives and mixing them together to create something interesting and relatable. I liked that the conclusion didn't insta-solve all their problems, but it left the door open for hope and growth.

Year On Fire" is a fitting title for this angsty and hyper vigilant emotional YA coming of age romance about four teens trying to navigate the end of high school and the expectations that come with becoming an adult. Thought-provoking and with lots of emphasis on mental health, this is a novel that is both beautiful and visceral in its writing style. It kept my guessing until the very end!

Immie is covering for her twin brother Arch, who kissed Jackson. And Jackson just so happens to be Immie’s best friend’s boyfriend. Amongst the drama, someone keeps setting the school on fire, but no one knows the identity of the the arsonist. Ro, a new student from London, shows up on the day of the first fire and becomes a part of Immie and Arch’s friend group. With everything that’s going on, these four teens must figure out their feelings for each other and how to move forward in a world that isn’t perfect.

I loved the alternating perspectives in this one and how each character is an anti-hero. Buxbaum shows the humanistic nature of families and how everyone has an inner struggle with identity, loneliness, and comparison. This is an interesting read that kept me turning the pages for answers. A book I enjoyed, but wished had a bit more romance.

This book catches you right from the beginning and keeps you coming back. I have never read any Julie Buxbaum books and she will be one I look for from now on. Year on fire is a great YA book and I will for sure be buying it for my nieces. The switch between characters lies and the unraveling of truth kept me searching and trying to figure out what was really going on. This book was well written and very enjoyable.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this ARC publication for an honest review.

Year on Fire

Julie Buxbaum

Publication: April 12, 2022

I am normally a big fan of Julie Buxbaum and her young adult books. For some reason, Year on Fire just didn’t work for me. I think the biggest issue was the fact that supposedly Immie & Jackson (twin siblings) and Paige are the best of friends. I just didn’t feel the relationship and the whole premise of the lie/betrayal, etc. Plus, the fact that they were “best friends” but didn’t share information about their homelife didn’t sound realistic. There were some cute romantic parts with Immie and Ro, but I didn’t love the dynamics/relationships between all the characters. Honestly, I was not too invested even in who the arsonist was…
The book was just okay for me, but I will still keep my eye out for other Julie Buxbaum book.
3 Stars

As a huge fan of Julie Buxbaum, I was eager to read her latest, and I couldn't stop listening! I loved each of the characters so much: twins Arch and Immie, their best friend Paige, and newcomer Rohan. Watching them each struggle to find themselves in the world of high school, their various struggles with their parents, and giving in to first love, was relatable, fun, and heartwrenching. If you're a fan of her work or Jennifer E. Smith's, give this a read. I wasn't totally satisfied by the ending – it felt rushed in places, and maybe a little unrealistic, but it was still a worthwhile read for fans of YA.

3.5 stars
This book was a little hard for me to get into. With 4 main characters and hearing all their voices it was a struggle for me to get going. I really enjoyed the twins, Arch and Immie, relationship and the new student, Ro, from London. I had a harder time with Paige. Once I figured her out she was a little easier to handle. This was a good coming of age story but I felt like it ended rather abruptly.

Julie Buxbaum is the queen of covering tough topics in a relatable way. Year On Fire is no different.

Arch and Immy are twins, and their best friend is Paige. The three of them have been friends forever. Now, at sixteen, they are starting to experience the hardships of high school and growing up, and realizing that not everything is as perfect as it seems. Arch and Immy's dad is at times abusive, and Paige's parents are often uninvolved with her life. The twins think that Paige has the perfect life in a large house with a lot of alone time and quiet. Paige thinks Arch and Immy have the perfect life because their parents are involved and they always have each other to rely on. The grass is always greener...

When a surprise turn of events sets Immy and Paige at odds, everything seems to start to crumble. Then, a new boy starts at the school and Immy has vowed to Paige that she wouldn't fall for him because Paige was interested. But when things happen beyond Immy's control, she tries to play it off that she isn't interested in the new boy. Meanwhile, the girl's bathroom at school went up in flames and everyone suspects it's arson. But why would anyone want to set the school on fire?

This book covers hard topics such as sexuality, friendships, betrayals, mental illness, and family life. Buxbaum does a great job at writing this story to be relevant to teenagers. She tackles tough topics while maintaining an overall upbeat writing style. I would recommend this book to anyone, especially those who love YA or connect to YA characters. 5 stars.

I find Buxbaum's writing so good it pulls in. Even in this case of a story that wasn't that interesting.

3+

Told in four points of view, we're introduced to a double love triangle? A pentagon? The mess had already started when Immie lied to protect her twin still in the closed in fear of what it could trigger in his family. The lie, that she had kissed her best friend's boyfriend, which ended the relationship. It gets worse when Immie falls for Ro, the new guy in school, for whom her friend had already called dibs.

The read is dynamic, for we have three stories, Immie's romance, her brother's journey to dealing with his feelings and identity, and Immie's friend's feeling on the verge of a breakdown. they're well connected, in a way it doesn't feel like they were three separate stories forced together to be a book long enough, but it's not confusing. As always, the writing is wonderful, a pleasing read.

However, I feel that I couldn't feel interested enough for most of it. I liked the premise for Immie's part, but the more we advanced the less I couldn't care—Immie is a nice character, but the story by itself felt like a thousand others I've read before. Her friend Paige's part was a little better, but I couldn't connect this time. In the end, her brother's, Arch, was the gem in this.

It's quick to read and the chapters are short enough that will get you reading a couple more even when you already feel it's time to stop, which made it go by even faster. I know the author tried to lend it the depth her stories usually have but it didn't do it, unfortunately. It's still above average for a YA, so don't feel discouraged. It is good. Good but it could have been excellent.


Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

The Quick Cut: Four teens deal with changing circumstances as their junior year of high school begins.

A Real Review:
Thank you to Delacorte Press for providing the ARC for an honest review.

High school tends to be a memorable time for all of us. Not necessarily because it's the most exciting or enjoyable, but because we shape the people we become during those formative teenage years. Are you the person you want to be or are you denying your true nature? This is an important question in this story centered around 4 teens in LA.

Twins Immie and Arch have been friends with Paige for a long time, but that friendship is changed when a new boy named Ro comes to their high school from London. Between his arrival and a suspicious fire, it seems like they don't know each other as well as they thought. Will this year bring them closer together as friends or pull them apart?

I tend to have a love/hate relationship with this particular author. Either I adore her writing or I just don't click with it at all. When it comes to this book, I seem to fall in the second category. There's nothing wrong with the story theoretically, but I also didn't connect to the story or the characters in a meaningful way.

This book is meant to be a coming of age story. All four main characters have their own struggles and how they choose to deal with them will change what their future looks like. The concept itself is great, but 4 main characters is at least one too many. I wanted to get to know the characters and invest in their journeys but I didn't have enough time to reach that level with any of them.

The story also is so focused on dealing with current circumstances that you don't really get to know them on a very deep level. The closest to get there is probably Ro, but that's because he's also dealing with his family's problems and where that takes him.

An intriguing concept that needed more focus.

My rating: 3 out of 5