Thanks so much to the publisher and to NetGalley for giving me access to this book. I just had a lukewarm feeling about this book. It is just a breakdown of two girls who were close drifting apart. It just felt very slow to me.

The premise was interesting and then plot did interest me. This book was just too wordy. And the girl’s relationship and the ending of it just didn’t ring true. Was expecting more drama.

The story of two girls who were best friends in childhood but drifted apart during adolesence. Set in Massachusetts, it is narrated by Julia, the good girl, Cassie is more troubled and has an unstable family life. The book never catches fire for me.

I received a free ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

beautiful coming of age story that will be a wonderful addition in class and book clubs. Haunting.

The Burning Girl examines the tumultuous friendship among young girls into their teenage years. Messud's book is beautifully written and dense. Purely character driven, the author takes her time in exploring the various aspects of her character's lives.
Since their nursery school years, Julia and Cassie Burnes have been more like sisters than friends. They have shared adventures and dreams, but as they cross the pivotal threshold also known as middle school where friendship, loyalty, and peer pressure can either make the friendship stronger or break it into tiny fragments, Julia starts to feel a separation with Cassie. To the reader, the splint between Julia and Cassie is inevitable especially as the two girls begin to take to different interests, Cassie is drawn to boys, alcohol, and drugs while Julia hasn't reached puberty yet.
There is a clear distinction between the two girls. Julia comes from a stable household where her parents take an interest in her, but Cassie's unreliable mother transfers her affection to a controlling lover who destroys Cassie's sense of security. Desperately unhappy, Cassie discovers her "dead father" who was put on a heroic pedestal may actually not be dead and sets out to find him, which begins a spiral of self-destruction that Julia, now no longer Cassie's intimate friend, must hear about from the boy they both love.
There are beautiful and biting passages that perfectly captures the wild roller coaster of puberty and coming of age that settles on being a girl from the biological changes that are thrust upon you to the scary realization of female vulnerability where "being a girl is about learning to be afraid". Ultimately, Julia notes that everyone has a mysterious story and that parts of those stories are composed of myths that we create. Though I enjoyed the writing of the story quite a bit, I was hoping for more of originality to the plot. I feel like this story has been written before. I found myself reading it in bits and pieces because it wouldn't hold my attention. If you are a fan of quiet, character-driven novels I would recommend picking it up.

What does it mean to grow up a girl? Well-heeled Julia comes to discover the answer to this very question as she watches her friend Cassie, her once inseparable friend drift away from her. Even though they spent virtually every day together as young kids, Cassie does not have the privileges that Julia has had and finds the transition to middle school more difficult than Julia. Added to this, her mother has moved in with a man, filling the void left by Cassie's long-dead father. Cassie is so disconcerted by this man's presence in her life, that she finds herself looking for clues about her father: who he was and possibly still is. Julia feels powerless at losing her friend, but in the end, she is the one to take decisive action.

this book is about the friendship of two girls Julie and Cassie who have been friends since nursery school . at first their bond appears unbreakable but the years go by and they drift apart. I guess everyone has had friends for different seasons of your life. This a very realistic telling of how you can grow apart without one specific event tearing you apart. . A riveting coming of age story

While the book’s title comes from a twist on a line in an Elizabeth Bishop poem, several things appear to be figuratively burning. Julia’s desire to maintain her friendship with Cassie, perhaps even some control over her. They are growing up, but she doesn’t want to let go. Cassie is literally about to boil over with frustration about her home life, trying to understand who she is, and if she can believe the one truth she holds so dearly. Teenage angst plays out in the worst way and while what one friend thinks is helpful another only sees rage.

I received this book for review from NetGalley.

This book was an intriguing, poignant book about life.

"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."

Friendship is a major part of life and sometimes the people that we are closest to when we are younger drift away. This book tackles that and what happens when you keep being drawn back to that person and your desire to help them. Julia and Cassie were both interesting and different characters and their journey seemed authentic and true to real life and that made this book all the more interesting to read.

What starts as a meandering story about two young girls slowly builds to something that didn't entirely make sense to me. It's a slow burn that is mostly satisfying to read, but the ending was disappointing.

Messud did a great job of perfectly capturing the often tumultuous nature of friendships between adolescent girls.

A unique writing style sets the tone for this fast paced read. Messud's take on the childhood friendship between two girls and how that shifts and changes over time is quite fascinating. Definitely hard to put down!

In the past couple of years, there has been an explosion of books published about adolescent and teenaged girls and their friendships. Tender to violent, novelists appear to attempt an exploration of how girls develop into women. Unfortunately, so many of these novels focus on girls corruption by older men, as in The Girls and The Most Dangerous Place on Earth, in particular. Even when their is no older man involved to strip these young girls of their innocence, the corrupting party is another girl - one who steps outside of the boundary of acceptable feminine behavior, as in Girls on Fire. One of the girls is good and continues to follow her parents rules or at her worst is only temporarily influenced by the irredeemable bad girl who will not be saved. Claire Messud has now stepped into this genre with The Burning Girl. While she doesn't follow the exact pattern which generally relies on shaming one girl, not the narrator, she does present a story of two girls, best friends, who grow apart and of course there is a boy involved and an older man. Many of the same tropes are evident in The Burning Girl, the isolating hierarchy of middle school popularity, girls being cruel to other girl, a boy who loves the wrong girl and the girl that secretly loves him, girl shaming and girl blaming. Surprisingly considering the insight about the single older woman that Messud brought to her wonderful novel, The Woman Upstairs, this one is less insightful and the most daring difference that she brings to this body of literature is the lack of a climax. Once the real conflict of the story arises it becomes clear that very little will actually occur. For a good portion of the book, our narrator tells the story as its been told to her secondhand. This particular narrative choice is surprising and could be considered lazy writing. I would like to give Messud the benefit of the doubt and think that this was a deliberate act on her part. Yet, the narrative does not hint that there is a greater purpose for this. It feels like it was simply the easiest way to explain how our narrator, Julia, has all of this information about someone who no longer speaks to her. Although this use of hearsay does force the reader to question the reliability of this story and the swirls of rumour that Julia repeats.

I kept waiting for something to happen in this book but it was very slow. If you are a fan of subtle books, you might enjoy this, but I like a little more action.

Set in contemporary small-town, middle-class Massachusetts, The Burning Girl by Claire Messud follows the friendship of Julia and Claire, tween girls on the cusp of growing up. Told from Julia’s perspective, she recounts memories from earlier in their friendship as well as in the present day, as they begin to drift apart. Claire has a troubled home life, she has secrets and takes risks, and she has been thrust into adulthood earlier than Julia – but this is only the start of why their intense friendship could not withstand adolescence. The Burning Girl is an understated, realistic portrayal of the intricacies of young female friendship and the silent rifts that can’t exactly be pinpointed.

<b>The Burning Girl</b> is an examination of the process of coming of age for two young characters. Cassie and Julia live in a suburb of Boston, Royston, where they have been friends since nursery school. The novel takes them through the incredible closeness of their childhood to middle school and early high school when they begin to change, and must make decisions about their friendship.<br><br>
So often situations or events take away our decisions about relationships with people we love. Cassie and Julia were different but complimented each other in a lovely symbiosis. They shared secret hiding places, a quarry to swim in, and picnics in the forest close to their homes.<br><br>
Eight grade seems to be that time when girls decide which way to go, become part of the popular crowd, or stay with the kids you have known a long time. In deciding to leave behind a friend, a hurt is committed. The person left behind may stagnate, and the scar will always be there. Middle School is a treacherous time in the lives of pre-pubescent kids. A few may breeze through, but more often than not, something permanent is left on the soul and affects the person for life.<br><br>
Claire Messud gets all of the details and understands brilliantly what these two girls live through. The parents may seem clueless, but they often play the biggest role in shaping what comes after these turbulent years. The big question is how do we know, understand, and help other people who live through a crisis? There are plenty of platitudes about the situation but very few plausible answers. Messud has written another brilliant novel about our inner lives.

Thank you, NetGalley, Claire Messud, and W.W. Norton Company.

The evolution of friendship presented in this novel will have most readers finding themselves nodding or reminiscing about the good and the bad of their own childhood friendships.

The Burning Girl is narrated by Julia (Juju), who is being raised in a caring, calm, middle-class home, while her best friend Cassie's life looks quite the opposite. Cassie brings an excitement and risk to both girls' lives as she often refuses to conform to societal rules. A once solid, seemingly unbreakable bond as children begins to slowly unravel as the girls age, without a definite or explainable instance to blame. Although Messud provides glimpses of a darkness in Cassie's home that keeps the reader moving forward, Julia's own struggles with growing up and changing relationships is where the true message of the story can be found.

Throughout the story delivered in The Burning Girl, the exploration of friendship was continually on the cusp of breaking into something really grand, but never quite made it there for me. 3.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and W.W. Norton and Company for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Having read The Woman Upstairs, I expected so much more from this book. I kept waiting for the story to explode, to pull me into it's embrace, but it never really did. The writing was amazing in places, and dull in others. The story just drifts along, and I wanted to be taken further into the darkness. There was just some piece missing that would have made this book better.

A compelling and engrossing coming-of-age tale centered on two best friends, Julia and Cassie, and how kids develop at different rates, their tastes diverge and rock solid friendships drift apart.
If this was an experiment in raising teenage girls, Julia would be the "control" - stable family, middles class background, good grades, on track for university, whereas Cassie would be the "experiment" - single mother, weird wannabe stepfather, turbulent home life.
When you add adolescent hormones to this already heady mix, it signals the start of a derailment for Cassie that will test the limits of her most enduring friendship and everything she holds dear.
This is a great tale, that kind of creeps up on you, as you get involved in the lives of these two girls. Your heart breaks for Cassie as she struggles with life in an all-too-familiar tale of teenage angst.
Great writing, great characters, great story.

Will be posted on School Library Journal's Adult4Teens, link is below.