A Burning

HOLY. COW.

Go read this book.

I really could end this review there and you'd just have to trust me on it, but I'll give you your money's worth. You're paying to read these reviews, right?

Anyway.

This book is sneaky good. Like, it's good and you know it as soon as you start reading it. But, I finished it almost a week ago and it keeps seeping out of my pores. From the first pages, it takes off and never really lets up. When I finished, I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. 

The Burning is so simply and plainly written, you almost don't realize you're reading a masterpiece. I believe the jacket description calls it "tidy." It's the story of a young woman's demise told through three central characters. Our main character, the woman in question, is a young woman in India who witnesses a train bombing. Through one seemingly innocuous action, she inserts herself into the case and seals her fate. She's arrested for the crime and becomes a national story. The other two characters are her former gym teacher and poor young woman to whom she was teaching English. The two of them quickly realize how their connection to this young girl helps them rise out of their own state and get closer than they ever imagined to their dreams. They soar, while she awaits charges in prison.

The way this book is written feels like a march forward. Simple sentences, short chapters, forward momentum. As a reader, you know you're going somewhere and you have your eyes half-covered as you keep marching in that direction. If I had an uninterrupted day, I could have read this in one sitting. It's a compelling and powerful look and power and poverty and how no one could ever suspect that some day, you could be their scapegoat.

Are you ready to read it now?