Julianna Baggott

Note: There are some spoilers for the first two books in this series, but none for this one, which completes the saga.

This is Book Three of a standout post-apocalyptic trilogy that goes beyond, and rises above, most contributions to this genre. Moreover, it is not what I would necessarily call a YA work. While it has young protagonists, it also has a level of sophistication and cynical realism more common to stories for “adult fiction.”

This dark tale is set in a brutal world following a show more series of detonations set off intentionally “to start the world over.” The survivors are in two groups. One of the groups had been inside a protective dome before the blasts, and, because they are physically intact, are called “Pures.” Those left outside in the ash-choked destroyed remains are called "Wretches." The bombs that destroyed most of the world were nanotech-enhanced weapons that disrupted molecular structures. That means those left outside became fused with whatever they were near at the time of the detonations. Some are part bicycle, or flecked with glass, or even fused with one another. Many mothers became fused with their children. The heroine of the story, Pressia, was seven at the time of the detonations, and because she was holding a doll at the time, one of her hands now is the doll’s head. And the hero, Bradford, was running through a flock of birds when the bombs went off; now three of them are part of his back.

In Burn, Pressia, Bradwell, and their friends El Capitan and Helmut (brothers who are fused together) are headed back to the Dome to try to take it down. Presumably Pressia’s half-brother Partridge and his girlfriend Lyda have already infiltrated it and are working for them on the inside. The friends trust Partridge, but he grew up in the Dome, and they have no idea that the psychological terrorism inside the Dome warped its inhabitants as fully (but invisibly) as the physical torments brutalized those on the outside.

On the inside, Partridge flounders: he has no idea whom to trust or what to believe, and no one to guide him. He lacks the courage and “street smarts” of those who grew up outside the Dome. Yet, somehow, he is expected, both by his friends outside and the rebels within, to lead the rebellion and help restore sanity to the planet. If this sounds like it leads to a facile and predictable ending, recall that Baggott is not a run-of-the-mill writer. All of the characters are pushed to their limits, and it is only in the trial of fire that we see what each of them is made of. But even then, the best qualities don’t always lead to optimal outcomes.

Discussion: I don’t want to sound fatuous by comparing Baggott to Shakespeare, but she definitely evokes the sweep and timeless themes of the tragedies and romances of Shakespeare, without falling into the trap of treacle or quotidian gap-filling or overused trope exploitation. This trilogy has elements of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Richard III that make you feel as if you have been given a glimpse of both the depths and heights of the human essence.

At the end of the book, we don’t have all the answers, and we don’t know what will happen next. But we do have an "Act V" to this play, and we have the promise of a new beginning on a different stage. I am very sorry the story has ended; I feel as if I will miss the characters terribly. show less

For Gwen Merchant, love has always been doled out in little packets—from her father, a marine biologist who buried himself in work after her mother’s death; and from her husband, Peter, who’s always been respectable and safe. But when an old college boyfriend, the irrepressible Elliot Hull, invites himself back into Gwen’s life, she starts to remember a time when love was an ocean.

What does Elliot want? In fact, he has a rather surprising proposition: he wants Gwen to become his show more wife. His pretend wife. Just for a few days. To accompany him to his family’s lake house for the weekend so that he can fulfill his dying mother’s last wish. Reluctantly Gwen agrees to play along—with her husband Peter’s full support. It’s just one weekend—what harm could come of it?

But as Gwen is drawn into Elliot’s quirky, wonderful family—his astonishingly wise and open mother, his warm and welcoming sister, and his adorable, precocious niece—she starts questioning everything she’s ever expected from love. And as she begins to uncover a few secrets about her own family, it suddenly looks like a pretend relationship just might turn out to be the most real thing she’s ever known. show less

When I first read the synopsis of this book, I was a little bit reluctant to start reading. Although dystopian fiction is one of my favourites, it all sounded a little bit ‘YA-romancey’’ to me. However, as I skimmed through the first few pages, I decided maybe it could be better than it sounded.

Julianna Baggott describes the post-apocalyptic/dystopic world after The Detonations in a way that sucks you right into the story from page one. Mutated animals, disfigured humans, creatures show more that defy definition are all part of a world that is unrecognizable, yet recognizable at the same time.

The characters, particularly Pressia, are so well defined and drawn I was immediately immersed into their lives, their feelings and their very different situations.

For me, this book is not YA in the traditional sense. It is brutal, ugly and beautiful all at the same time, and although the main characters are in their teens, their speech, thought and actions are for the most part that of older characters, giving a real sense that they had grown up in the world so intricately created by Ms. Baggott.

The science behind the Detonations and the Dome are examined and to some extent explained, but not in a way that is overwhelming for readers who may not be overly interested in that facet of the book – in fact, it is so well intertwined that at times I didn’t really even notice!

The only negative for me is that I found the book to be slightly long, perhaps 50 pages longer than it could have been, but that didn’t dampen my enjoyment of this book.

I highly recommend this book to fans of YA-dystopia, dystopia and post-apocalyptic genres. show less

Bridget Asher is one of the pen names of Julianna Baggott, a favorite author of mine. I like the characters she constructs and her insights into the human condition. In fact, my very favorite middle grade book is by her (The Prince of Fenway Park) as well as my very favorite post-apocalyptic dystopia trilogy (Pure, Fuse, and Burn).

This novel is about a very quirky matriarchal family, the Rockwells. The mother, Augusta, never married, and her three girls have no idea who fathered them. show more Augusta told them their father was a spy, but they didn’t believe her.

It begins in 1985 at their family home in Ocean City, New Jersey, just as a storm is coming through. Augusta has issued her daughters, Esme, Liv, and Ru (short for Ruby), batons to help “conduct” the storm. She told them:

“Storms are one way to define people. There are those who love storms, those who fear them, and those who love them because they fear them.”

Clearly, this will be a theme of the story, and will come into play later as we learn what happened to the father of the girls.

The plot next moves to 2012, when Hurricane Sandy is bearing down upon them. But it is not the only storm in each of their lives. Esme, the oldest, is now 44 and married with a teenage daughter Atty (named for Atticus Finch). Esme and Atty have just found out that Esme’s husband Doug left them while on a trip to Paris. Liv, 40, has been married three times and is researching a possible fourth. Ru, the youngest, is a best-selling author and is in Vietnam trying to get inspiration for another book.

We then move forward again, eight months after the hurricane. Another storm is coming, and this time it will upend all of their lives.

Navigating the various emotional storms that besiege each of the characters, we learn about their rather unique attitudes toward love, including the love most like a passenger pigeon, according to Liv: something rare and precious and thought to be extinct: i.e., love that lasts a lifetime.

The book ends with an Epilogue that reminded me very much of the ending of the iconic movie “American Graffiti” with the “where are they now” information that scrolls across the screen during the credits.

Discussion: Atty functions as the “Greek chorus” of this book with her hilarious tweets commenting on every situation. But all of the women are witty, self-deprecating, and sympathetic in spite of many character flaws.

Some of my favorite moments:

When Esme finds out Doug left her while on a trip to Paris, she wonders:

“Would they be divorcing via Skype - all disjointed, their voices not quite synced to the movement of their mouths? Would she divorce her husband of seventeen years like a badly dubbed Asian monster movie?”

Atty, a master of clever hashtags, also reacts to the pending divorce in her live-tweets: “Will my mother be on the market one day? #ew”

Liv has guided her life by an effort to escape “the unbearable weight of the ordinary . . . " She looks for potential husbands by scanning newspaper engagement announcements, explaining why the men in them make good prospects for someone else to snag them:

“None of them are [happy]. Their fiancées have changed on them almost overnight. . . These men are being forced to make decisions and no one cares about their opinions. They’re being railroaded into buying things they don’t want to buy, arrange people’s seating in ways they don’t want to arrange, pick from samples of food they don’t want to eat, list their friends in a hierarchy, cut cousins off lists. They’re spending more time with their in-laws. . . .They’re dying inside. . . . [This is] 'the quiet desperation of weddings. . . .'"

And I loved Ru's reaction to the chaos at the end:

“Teddy was back. Her father was back. Cliff was coming. It was like an attack of men. What did it mean? She didn’t want to think of men. She wanted something soothing, something simple….”

Evaluation: I found this story delightful. Unlike so many stories about dysfunctional families, there wasn’t a hateful character in the bunch. One could learn a lot from the way each of these women pushed her way past the storms of life through wit, love, and increasing self-awareness, no matter how reluctantly acknowledged. show less