BURN OUR BODIES DOWN is a story about how far we'll go and how much we'll forgive just for the word "family".

Rory Power has a formula for her books that I absolutely love. Engaging mystery, girls that don't know how to deal with their emotions, a speculative light sci-fi twist, and writing that is beautiful and poetic. BURN OUR BODIES DOWN follows this formula, but Margot's journey to discover her family's past hit home with me. I was able to relate to Margot and her mother a lot as characters. The mystery Rory's built here is compelling and kept me questioning every character's actions (except Eli, my sweet baby).

I know that WILDER GIRLS has sort of become my Brand™️, and I love both WG and Corn Book equally, but in different ways. I think if WG didn't work for you, this one probably won't either. I do think Rory has improved a lot on many fronts, but I know many people had problems with the open ending, the distant characters, and the poetic writing. Those things are still present, but I feel like that's how you know you're reading a Rory Power book.

Rory Power is fast becoming one of my favorite authors because she spins a heck of a story. I received this as and ARC and I DEVOURED it.

Her characters are easy to empathize with, making them so easy to get attached to.
The worlds she makes, always something slightly off, something slightly damaging, are completely engaging.

In this instance, Margot just wants somewhere and someone to belong to, to feel cared for and like she’s apart of something. She could never have predicted what it was she was already a part of, and finding the answers isn’t always as rewarding or without consequences as she hoped it would be.

My heart broke for Margot, then got a little hope, and then broke all over again, repeat cycle over and over.

Highly recommended, especially for fans of Wilder Girls.

I’m seeing the stars! THIS IS…. THIS BOOK… THIS STORY… THI…TH…T… I lost the words! Please somebody tell me my lines! Oh boy, weklcjoj4ffejewoi! Oh no, I lost my cognitive skills! I lost my brain! I lost my mind! I lost my mouth! Oh no, how can drink wine without my mouth? Who is talking now? Did I become a ventriloquist?
WHAT THE HELL I JUST READ!!!

I carry three heads right now! I hold something in my hands: a secret recipe of the best mind bending novel I’ve read lately.

Here is the formula: We have a table spoon “Children of Corn” and stir it with two cups of “Sharp Objects” and add some Stephen King and Paul Tremblay’s eerie, spooky, earth shattering, mind crushing thriller elements, mix it with literature’s most batshit crazy mother-daughter dysfunctional relationships starting from Carrie
White and Margaret White to Beloved’s Sethe and her spirit daughter. And then cook it over a fire! And let’s sing the DISCO INFERNO’S “Burn baby burn” chorus, then continue with “come on baby light my fire”! But be careful not to be burned!

And let’s talk about this unconventional, complex, mind spinning plot:

Margot is her last days of 18 and she has a dysfunctional, unhealthy, weird, dependent, a kind of obsessed and sick relationship with her mother. I’m not sure if Margot is the real mother and her mother Jo already lost her marbles from the beginning, having no idea how to raise a kid.

Margot feels trapped and save herself from their party of two lives and bring more family members into the equation. But her mother rejects to give her any information about their family history. And one day Margot accidentally finds out she has a grandmother who lives at the weirdest town that the world already forgot it existed, named Phalene. She thinks she found her missing piece, a real opportunity to have a big family including lots of stupid cousins, gossiping aunts, wanker uncles, okay I’m kidding, of course she wants to be a part of real family and make changes with her life so she questions her mother to learn more but she still keeps her mother shut. Margot finally decides she’ll learn everything from her own way!

And as soon as she takes her first step to the eerie, ominous town waiting in silence the storm’s coming (or let’s say the big fire’s approaching!) she meets with Tess and Eli and finds out her grandmother’s land on fire.
When she reaches her house, she sees a girl lying motionless. As soon as she saves her from fire, she realizes the girl looks just like her and she is dead! And the officers catch her besides the girl think she is responsible from the fire and the girl’s dead.

But don’t worry! Grandmother the dearest comes to the station and berates the officers for frightening her granddaughter the sweetest. So Margot goes to the house of grandmother the sneakiest and she finally finds out she already opened dozen cans of worms! She slowly absorbs the secret structure of their family history.

And I stop right here… because after Margot’s arrival at grandmother’s house, this book turns into something breathtaking, astonishing, grey cell terminator, shocking, twisty, surprising, explicit but also dark, wild, terrifying.

I kept mumbling to myself : ‘WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF!” and my husband found me at the living room, sitting on the floor, numb, saliva dripping down my mouth, pale, eyes widened as if I’d seen first 27 minutes of “Saving Private Ryan” over and over again!

THIS IS SOOOO CRAZY, NASTY, MIND SPINNING EXPERIENCE and I liked every word, sentence, page, ink of it!

I enjoyed the “Wilder Girls” but for the love of mind-bending books, this is so unexpectedly splendid masterpiece and I highly recommend the readers who like something extra ordinary, different, out of your comfort zone! Rory Power rises and shines with this fast pacing, surprising novel!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Delacorte Press for sharing this incredible ARC COPY with me in exchange my honest review. I LOVED IT SO MUCH!

Burn Our Bodies Down is the second book from Rory Power and it did not disappoint! This book kept me guessing until the very end.

I was hoping right alongside Margot that she would get the answers she needed and the family she so desperately wanted. With all the twists, I had no idea what was going to happen, which makes for a great thriller. This wasn't the story I was expecting, but it ended up being so good and I really liked it.

Summary:

Ever since Margot was born, it’s been just her and her mother. No answers to Margot’s questions about what came before. No history to hold on to. No relative to speak of. Just the two of them, stuck in their run-down apartment, struggling to get along.

But that’s not enough for Margot. She wants family. She wants a past. And she just found the key she needs to get it: A photograph, pointing her to a town called Phalene. Pointing her home. Only, when Margot gets there, it’s not what she bargained for.

Margot’s mother left for a reason. But was it to hide her past? Or was it to protect Margot from what’s still there? The only thing Margot knows for sure is there’s poison in their family tree, and their roots are dug so deeply into Phalene that now that she’s there, she might never escape.

#NetGalley
#Edelweiss
#BurnOurBodiesDown
Thank you so much for the E-arc copy of Burn Our Bodies Down.
An intense read. If you liked Wilder Girls, then you will get the dark and emotional comparison to it.

This was an interesting book to say the least. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t this. ‘Burn Our Bodies Down’ is a story about Margot who wants to know more about her family. It has always been just her and her mom and her mom seems to surround herself in secrets. It’s only natural for Margot to look for answers as to where they come from, but when she goes to look for those answers, she ends up finding more questions.

I think that Powers has an interesting writing style. It definitely takes a couple of pages to get into it, but as soon as I did the story flowed so well and so quick that I didn’t realize how fast I was reading this book. I would look up from the page and suddenly realize how few I had left. Margot is an interesting character to follow and her entire family is just so mysterious that I couldn’t help but want more.

This certainly read like a horror novel. I don’t know if the clues were obvious on purpose, or I’ve just seen enough horror movies to pick up on the clues, but oh my god! I wanted to shake Margot for not seeing what I was seeing. I think that's what I liked most about this book. It made me so frustrated that I needed to keep turning the page because I just knew something was going to go wrong. Just all the mystery that kept being stacked on top of another mystery and it all surrounded this family!

I was expecting the end but not the way it happened. I honestly still cant get over what I just read.

Rory Power is unstoppable. It could be confirmation bias, I wanted to like this so I did, but that doesn't account for the spine-tingly, what just happened irl because my head was a million miles away in a book, genuinely gripping feel of the thing.

This book was received as an ARC from Random House Children's - Delacorte Press in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

Wow I could not believe the passion and intensity expressed throughout the book. I was so blown away by the determination Margot had to find out not only about her family but who she was as a person. Was it for protection? or Did her mother not want her to know for other reasons? It is so scary when your mother or last living relative passes away and you are left with nobody by your side. No wonder Margot really desperately wanted a family. Every family has secrets and for Margot's case, she has to choose between life or death. I know our teen book club will be ranting and raving of this book and I can't wait to see the discussions that come from it.

We will consider adding this title to our YA collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.