This story is so important and I think it has potential to be a hit with women of all ages. Tackling bullying, slut shaming, death, and a lot of other issues is so important.

The story itself is beautiful albeit dark and grim. Unfortunately you have to read through a lot of clunky writing to get to the important parts. Bates has talent, but I feel like the editing was poorly done. A lot of the minuscule details could have been shortened or even cut out entirely.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

This book paints a stark portrait of what the world does to girls through dual timelines of slut shaming in the forms of cyberbullying now and the witch hunting trials of history. This book is brutally honest, but as the author notes, all of the things that happen to our main character come from the experiences of real girls. I think there will be adults who say the content is too mature or adult for teen YA readers, but that would be missing the point of this book entirely. Adults who dismiss these events as too intense for teens are silencing victims' voices and turning a blind eye to the problems girls face today. We need to listen to what teens are telling adults about what they endure and take their side to fight to change it. This is an important book that I think will make for excellent discussion both among teens and their peers, but also to open a dialogue with the adults in their lives. Adults should learn the warnings signs this book shows and learn to have discussions with their teens who might be too embarrassed or overwhelmed to come to them. I can't say this is an enjoyable book to read but it is so very important and a necessary lifeline for young people and the adults who need to fight for them.

This was powerful and compelling. I could not put this book down. It accurately depicts the struggles young people have today with social media. At the age of fourteen and feeling vulnerable after her father’s death, Anna makes some bad choices. These choices result in her mother moving them to Scotland, where Anna uses her mother’s maiden name. She hopes no one will ever find out what made them move. But of course, someone does find out. The story from then is non stop action and full of emotion. I loved it! A great read for parents of teens.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was a difficult read mostly cause of the clunky writing and cause you have to deal with the protagonist going through every single mundane moment of the day. It just wasn't compelling and it took forever to get to the plot. I really wanted to love this book but sadly it was a miss for me.

"We are the granddaughters of the witches you could not burn. And we're not putting up with it anymore."

Anna and her mother make a new home in Scotland hundreds of miles and a new country away from the home she grew up in. Told from the perspective of Anna Clark as her and her mother navigate a new life together without her father, who has passed away, trying to put her past of online sexual harassment and abuse by her friends and school mates behind her. They hope by erasing all of Anna's social media, and moving, the problem will go away on it's own.
They move into an old cottage by the sea, which Anna finds once belonged to a woman accused of witchcraft, and their stories begin weaving together from there, with Anna having troubling, vivid flashbacks of the woman's life.
While I am not the target audience for this book, as a woman, I connected to it in more than one way. The readers are taken down the paths of two women, while hundreds of years apart, find themselves in similar situations, discovering just how powerful, and detrimental a rumor can be. This book would be beneficial for any woman to read, with a powerful story that is relevant to our day and age, and deals with the many faces of abuses young women have to deal with, Online bullying & Harassment, Slut-shaming, rape, victim blaming, just to name a few. These topics are dealt with in the present day of Anna's life, and the life of the accused witch that lived hundreds of years ago.
found the way Bates weaved the women's stories together quite lovely, and the "visions" not only fit within the book at perfect times, they fit the story so well that both of the narratives had my heart breaking for these girls at the same time.
This book is a slow burn, taking quite some time for the reader to discover just exactly what Anna was running from in her previous life, and while I enjoyed this book, I found it incredibly tedious waiting for the author to unravel the details. I was expecting more of a climax, an AH-HA moment that felt like it never came to fruition, and the story just fizzled out. All in all it was an ok debut that dealt with important subject matter relevant to girls in our day and age, however I felt that it fell flat for me in more ways than one.


**Thank you Netgalley and publishers for my advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review**

I haven’t read young adult in a while and this book reminded me of what I love about it. The heart wrenching torture of being a teen is the absolute worst. And this novel explains it all and I just felt so much for the main character.

Reading this novel was a traumatic experience; one doesn't have to have suffered in these particular venues to hurt in sympathy with the protagonist. Any woman, girl, child, and any man with a Sensitive heart will surely find Anna's tribulations extraordinary (and those of the historical villager Maggie as well). Strongly written, compelling, horrifying, THE BURNING powerfully delineates societal double standards, both now and in the 16th century.

Oh, I really wanted to enjoy this one more than I did. It had a lot of the elements I liked--rumors, school, gossip, social media, twists, and turns--in a light, fast-paced book but it didn't really connect for me. It seemed like a first draft with zero editing, not a book nearly ready to be on shelves. The prose was very clunky. It read like it was for elementary school level readers but the material wouldn't have been appropriate for them.

In this YA novel, a young woman who has had her nude photos shared throughout a student body relocates with her mother to a small. Town, hoping to start fresh. But of course her past catches up with her, and she has to deal with new harassment. This takes up the bulk of the book, which is too bad, because if the act of resistance the protagonist does at the very end of the book had come earlier, the author could have focused on strategies for pushing back against such bullying. The protagonist and her mother—who is an incredibly naive and inattentive parent—need a lot of therapy, and while the author provides links to anti bullying resources at the end of the novel, none of those actually appear in the book, which is a terrible missed opportunity. A structure and approach that focused more on combating the problem, instead of reveling in the kinds of messages harassers send and what they do, would have resulted in stronger characters and a stronger book overall. A side plot about a historical figure in the protagonist’s new town is okay but not really compelling.

This book had me crying in my bed at 2am.
I went into this book with little to no expectations especially since I had only a bare idea of what this book was about but I came to love this story and the important message it holds.
While reading I was totally consumed in the story and in Anna's life. I felt frustrated for her and with her.
I really appreciated the similarities and the contrast of storylines between Anna researching the story of Maggie, a woman who was trialled as a witch, and her dealing with being persecuted and called a slut. It really made me think which is something I always love from a good book. It made me realise that we haven't evolved all that much and the cries of calling woman "witches" has simply changed to calling them "sluts" or "whores".
This book was uncomfortable to read at times due to the onslaught of abuse hurled at Anna and how real that was.
My only nitpick really about this book is that this book is set in Scotland and the main character is from England and yet there's a lot of American words and I know it's a stupid thing to point out but for the first 20% of the book it's all I saw.

3 stars

My impression of this book can be summed up as follows: everything and the kitchen sink...and then a few other ideas. There are some very important and worthwhile topics covered here, but they get lost a bit in the sheer profusion.

What's to like? There's in-depth coverage of slut-shaming, bullying, and DeepFakes, which are not being discussed enough in literature in general, let alone in YA, where many of the real-life victims of this exist. Readers get first-hand impressions of how these issues impact the main character, and these parts of the novel are powerful and likely incredibly helpful for readers with similar experiences and for those who need to build empathy around them.

Areas of concern: The adults - though well meaning in some cases - are gross. There's a lot of disbelief, lacking support, blaming victims, and general instruction that pulling a geographic is the best way to "win" over one's problems (though, fortunately, this is proven false in an obvious way). There are two side plots that drove me bananas the whole time: (1) the father's death and (2) everything witch related. The dad's death is not really explored except to say that it happened, and in one scene only, time helps to heal this wound. Either take it out, or do more with it. The witch piece...ugh. I see the connection, which is also overt in the title, and the idea is great, but it never comes together. There are lengthy, italicized passages providing insight into the experience of MM, and a potentially interesting relationship that arises between the m.c. and a local historian, but neither of these aspects is well integrated into the novel overall.

I feel like I'm having an conversation with a student here after a brainstorming session or a first draft of an essay, but my honest read is this: so many ideas...focus and unite!

The writing style of this book felt pretty average for me but I enjoyed the mystery and layers of plot behind the characters. An overall enjoyable read.

This is a great look into slut shaming and the reality of our misogynistic culture, but I wasn't wowed by this. I spent the first half bored, and the second half trying to keep up. Great concept with a slightly subpar execution. Though I definitely think Laura Bates will be an author I keep my eye on.

The Burning is a touching book about injustices that girls and women go through. How so much is expected of us yet it's either too much or too little. What goes on through this book infuriates me and to know that it's more than fiction is heartbreaking.

The Burning
by Laura Bates

I sadly give The Burning a 3 out of 5 birds. I’d do 2.5 but no one wants to see half a bird…

I want to thank NETGALLEY for a free copy of this book in exchange for my HONEST review.

I wanted to LOVE this book but I did not. If you want to know the topics we talked about in my MANY women’s and gender classes in college every.single.one.of.them. is in this book. It was jam packed with issues. They weren’t subtle either. It was overwhelming to try and wrap my mind around all of the things these teens were going through.

I was intrigued by the witch plot line- but after making through a few of her monologues I spaced out and skimmed them.

Overall the book was on some of the most important topics in our society, but it was executed in a way that was messy, confusing, and overbearing. It probably needed another edit or two.

I hate saying this because I know how hard it is to write a book, especially this type. So for that- You go Girl!

It has swearing, sex talk, bullying, talk of porn, sexting. At this point you get the gist… It has a lot. Do I recommend it? Sadly, I don’t :(

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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book.

I feel like this is a hit or miss type of book, and for me it was a miss. It has a lot of social issues, too many, crammed into one teenagers life. Anna is a good enough written character, but I feel like it was just too much. The execution fell flat to me, and I feel like it's going because they trying to have too much going on with one single girl.
Overall, not for me, but the concept was pretty good if only executed better.

I thought this was going to be way more interesting but it went entirely too slow and wasn’t salacious enough for me to be wow-Ed by anything. The writing style was decent.

The premise of this book is amazing, but unfortunately the execution fell a little short of amazing for me. Well written this book is issue heavy, which was a little too much for my enjoyment. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an ARC egalley.

I was really excited to read this book, but it fell a bit short for me. I did, however, appreciate the theme.

If you add up all the social issues that could possibly happen to teen girls and put them all into one novel, that’s what this is. I expected something very different, especially since I just read something YA and wonderfully witty and salacious and thought this would be along the same lines. This just felt sensationalistic and flat.

There’s an audience for this book, but it’s not me. I’m giving two stars.

**Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for graciously giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are my own.