The Burning Girl

Summary (from the publisher): A bracing, hypnotic coming-of-age story about the bond of best friends, from the New York Times best-selling author of The Emperor’s Children.

Julia and Cassie have been friends since nursery school. They have shared everything, including their desire to escape the stifling limitations of their birthplace, the quiet town of Royston, Massachusetts. But as the two girls enter adolescence, their paths diverge and Cassie sets out on a journey that will put her life in danger and shatter her oldest friendship.

Claire Messud, one of our finest novelists, is as accomplished at weaving a compelling fictional world as she is at asking the big questions: To what extent can we know ourselves and others? What are the stories we create to comprehend our lives and relationships? Brilliantly mixing fable and coming-of-age tale, The Burning Girl gets to the heart of these matters in an absolutely irresistible way.

 

Review: I received an advance reading copy of this novel as a giveaway on Goodreads.

 

Julia and Cassie, friends since nursery school, spend the summer before seventh grade completely inseparable, exploring their small hometown of Royston, Massachusetts. Yet this summer marked a turning point in their relationship, as their paths diverged as the girls entered adolescence. Julia watches from the sidelines as her oldest friend is pulled into a path of destructive decision and potentially dangerous situations.

 

From the beginning, the difference between Julia and Cassie is emphasized; physically Cassie is much smaller and slighter than Julia, Cassie comes from a single parent home, and Julia is considered to have a brilliant future that is slightly out of Cassie's grasp. It was never entirely clear to me why Cassie is seen as having less potential than Julia, other than the fact that Julia comes from a two parent home where her father is a dentist. Yet the difference in their positions is emphasized continually: "I was treated as a kid with a bright future and Cassie, well, she wasn't necessarily not going to have one, but her path would be different from mine" (113).  Furthermore, Cassie is a risk taker; Julia says that Cassie "relied on me to keep us safe" (58). This balance that Julia provides to Cassie's tendency to be incautious is lost when Cassie stops hanging out with Julia and has to make decisions for herself.

 

As this novel was first person narration from a young adult, the writing style is not nearly as high brow as in her previous work, The Emperor's Children. Yet there are vivid phrases tucked about, such as Julia describing Cassie's absent father: "it was as if her father stood behind a thick black curtain with tiny holds in it. She had to get up close to those pinpricks and peer through, trying to glean her father's overall shape from the little she could glimpse" (47).

 

This novel has an ominous tone throughout, with one of the opening scenes featuring Cassie being attacked by a dog. Throughout, I felt as if Julia was constantly looking over her shoulder and I was just waiting for something tragic and dark to happen. Julia ruminates a lot on the fate of missing persons and the caution that women must display when venturing out alone: "when a teenage girl walks alone in the night there is a story, and it involves her punishment, and if that punishment is not absolute - rape and even death itself - then it must, at the very least, be the threat of these possibilities, the terror of them" (150). In the end, this novel reads as both a coming of age tale but also a cautionary tale of the dangers inherent in being a risk taker like Cassie.

 

Stars: 3

 

Related Title:

• The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud