I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Fire & Flood by Victoria Scott Published by Scholastic Press on February 25th 2014
Pages: 304
Genres: Dystopian, Young Adult
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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Goodreads
A modern day thrill ride, where a teen girl and her animal companion must participate in a breathtaking race to save her brother's life—and her own.
Tella Holloway is losing it. Her brother is sick, and when a dozen doctors can't determine what's wrong, her parents decide to move to Montana for the fresh air. She's lost her friends, her parents are driving her crazy, her brother is dying—and she's helpless to change anything.
Until she receives mysterious instructions on how to become a Contender in the Brimstone Bleed. It's an epic race across jungle, desert, ocean, and mountain that could win her the prize she desperately desires: the Cure for her brother's illness. But all the Contenders are after the Cure for people they love, and there's no guarantee that Tella (or any of them) will survive the race.
The jungle is terrifying, the clock is ticking, and Tella knows she can't trust the allies she makes. And one big question emerges: Why have so many fallen sick in the first place?
From Goodreads
Someone much crueller than me would describe this book as a Survivor Reality show meets YA. Giant race, one winner, only instead of a cash prize and not-so-eternal glory, the winner of the Brimstone Bleed gets a cure to save their dying relative. That’s the situation every contestant, including Tella our protagonist, is in.
With only their Pandoras to rely on, each contender has to run the game with no rules and make it to the finish line first to claim a prize. Fire & Flood covers the first two locations, half of the race, and follows Tella as she tries to survive the harsh conditions to save her brother. Clearly my first thought was to seriously consider whether I would do such a race for either of my brothers.
Should have let me play with your lego, asshole!
Honestly, I’m joking. Pretty sure I’d do this at least once for each of my brosephs, but maybe that’s because I think I could probably survive this whole experience a bit better than Tella who has exactly no survival skills. Tella, I love you, but you roll a leech off. Don’t pull it! Basically, the only thing stopping me from winning this race would be my appalling sense of direction.
Scott had completely won me over with The Collector, so I was pretty excited to read this. It is a massive departure in style, story and thematically which is brave of Scott as a writer to embrace. I have a lot of respect for authors who can branch out and try new things. This book mostly worked for me. I didn’t absolutely love it, but I quite liked it.
The positives are what Scott brought to the table in terms of characterisation. The book is very character driven when not drowning you in suspense and walking. The survivalist aspects of the novel are a major selling point if you’re into that sort of thing. But I would have liked to have seen more development in the romance. What did Guy like about Tella? What made them click other than throbbing hormones and the safety net he provides her? I couldn’t say. Not that I didn’t like Guy but that their relationship made little sense to me.
The Pandoras are a great addition to the novel, providing much of the moral quandary and entertainment for the reader. Scott has pulled all out to build up not just the cast, but their Pokemon sidekicks too, in order to enrich the novel. Downside is that the story just didn’t make much sense. The eventual explanation for the race was something of an anticlimax, leaving me scratching my head and wondering how this event has stayed so incognito. There’s a lot of questions and not nearly enough answers.
All up it was an enjoyable novel and I look forward to the sequel. Even if I could beat this book in a race.
Kat Kennedy
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Deniz
Great review as ALWAYS!!!
Mona
Australians are my favorite kind of people. ^_^
I had much of the same thoughts while reading this book. Great review as always!
Missie
I really like the pandoras but the MC drove me nuts! She was just so snotty! I do want to see where the series goes!
Missie @ A Flurry of Ponderings
Missie recently posted…Review of Days of Blood and Starlight
Eileen @ Singing and Reading in the Rain
Twitter: eileenli8
Hahaha I didn’t know that Tella was in the race just to save her brother. I can definitely see myself doing the same thing, mainly because I just got back from playing lacrosse outside with my brother (rather I made him throw the ball at me while I unsuccessfully tried to catch it). But I guess now that he did that for me I’d *have* to do the same thing *insert overdramatic sigh*, and thanks for the tip about leeches! I never knew that (I’d probably be dead before Tella come to think of it) Glad that you enjoyed this one, Kat! Loved the picture at the end too!! Fantastic review <33
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Cait @ Notebook Sisters
BAHAHA…yeah, thanks Bear Grylls. Camping. -_- (I hate camping. Especially in the middle of Oz in the middle of summer. WHY. JUST WHY.) I’m kind of nervous about Fire & Flood. I desperately want to read it, but a lot of people compare it to The Hunger Games (which I adore) and I don’t really like rip-offs/take-offs, you know? Plus Tella sounds a bit unlikable. But I just HAVE to read it and decide for myself. Eventually. I need to trip on a lump of gold.
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Natalie M.
Twitter: pinkatailmon
Another 3 stars, huh? *sigh* Probably going to push it to the back of my to-read for now. I’ve had my fill of mediocre books.
Danielle
This was such a FUN book for me. I love that most of it was set within the Brimstone Bleed, and I think Victoria Scott did a good job making the challenges exciting and tense. I have to say that I like the direction the romance took. There isn’t a whole lot of explanation for why Guy helped Tessa, but it never came off as insta-love to me or anything. Plus he kind of reminded me of Jonah Griggs, which is an astonishing thing for me to say. 🙂
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