Review: Burn This City by Brenda Poppy

Title: Burn This City
Author: Brenda Poppy
Publisher: Glass Fish Publishing
Genres: Science Fiction
Length: 303 pages
My Rating: ★★★.5
3.5/5 stars

Summary

Kasis is an uninhabitable planet, yet there they were – inhabiting. It’s no wonder that prolonged colonization produced…side effects. Or gifts. But with a militarized government that persecutes people for being different, using such a gift could mean certain death.

Auburn Alendra is one of the gifted. Her power allows her to hear into the deepest corners of the polluted city, gathering secrets and using them to her advantage. When one of those secrets threatens her very existence – along with thousands of others throughout the city – Auburn must do everything it takes to fight back.

Along with a resistance force known as the Lunaria, “Burn” races against the clock to infiltrate the government’s Peace Force in search of answers and discover a way to avoid all-out warfare. Join Burn on a thrilling adventure as she navigates the perils of a scarred dystopian landscape and discovers the true cost of survival.

Review

Burn This City did not go the trajectory I had anticipated, and it was all the better for it. All too often in dystopian or science fiction reads there’s an imbalance between an intricately designed setting and some rushed together characters or plot but that was not the case here. In fact, by the end, most of the questions I had revolved around the world itself! I felt like I understood the characters, their motives, and their relationships quite well in the ending. The concept of powers in the world was really interesting, and I like the balance it provided through the idea that more exposure to pollution equates to more individuals with powers, effectively balancing the privileges that those in less polluted areas have. This book was also excellent with foreshadowing – there were things laid out so clearly in the very beginning that I hadn’t even realized tied together until the end reveals. This is a good light read and I’m intrigued to see where book two goes! 

What I especially liked was how unique the gifts in this book were, so I’m going to highlight three of those

• Burn (Auburn)
  • Auburn has enhanced hearing, to the point that she can hear people several city blocks away. Despite living most of her life with this gift there’s still room for her to explore it. We get to see that growth during that book and the payoff from the growth is great to see. 
• Scar (Scarlett)
  • Scarlett is kind of a cyborg, in a way? She was born partly metal, which I try not to think of the science behind too deeply because in practice it is freaking cool. She’s like a mechanical savant, fixing and inventing anything she can. 
• Coal 
  • Can impersonate anyone, but they’re not a shapeshifter. It vaguely reminds me of how Lightweaving from the Stormlight Archive novels works. 

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Thank you so much to the author, Brenda Poppy, for a copy of Burn This City! It’s out today if you’d like to grab a copy.

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Fun Friday: Arranging, and rearranging, and undoing everything

Now that I’ve finally settled into a more permanent, spacious living arrangement after four years of living the oddly transient lifestyle of a college student, I’ve begun slowly restarting my book collection. When I lived in sorority housing I shared a room that was so small I couldn’t even lay across the space between my roomates bed and my own – and I’m only 5’4! Plus, every summer we were quite unceremoniously sent to sublease or move back with our parents while the house shut down all operations for the season. With space at a premium and having to move boxes of my things twice a year for four years, I wasn’t exactly able to keep many belongings with me. This little shelf encompassed the only physical books I had with me, and most of those were gifts or impulse buys from Square Books

What’s crazy is that before college, I was absolutely guilty of being a book hoarder. Growing up I remember begging and pleading with my mom to not make me get rid of a single book, not even one. We counted once when I was in high school and I had over 200 physical books accumulated even with donating regularly to the library, selling some, and having many more stored on my Kindle.

As I’m sure you can imagine I was more than a little excited when I graduated and moved into a place where I could keep as many books as I wanted! Now that my collection is finally growing again, I’ve encountered an issue I really should have predicted.

I’m already running out of the room I’d set aside specifically for books.

See, I’d bought these two beautiful wooden bookshelves for such a good deal at HomeGoods right before I moved in. Aren’t they so cute on both sides of the bed?! This pic was taken on the day I moved in, in May.

They have a weight limit though and, as I learned from moving about 10 times in four years (thanks for the extra craziness, Covid!), books are incredibly freaking heavy. So I set aside some sections for books, some sections for decor, and bought even more shelves because I knew what would be coming. I also have my old school books and such in a box for the time being. I really thought it would take a while to fill them all to capacity.
This is what the overflow shelf looked like two weeks ago, shown with my dresser and some cute extra goodies I’ve found on sale – it’s so pretty, this corner relaxed me just looking at it! I even posted it to my bookstagram last week. And yes, I do have a minor obsession with pothos plants going on in my room.

But, I realized some of my new rows of books on the matching bedside shelves might be too heavy. So, I moved it… and now my backup shelf looks like the next pic. It’s gorgeous, it makes me happy every time I look at it. Until I received a super sweet, surprise gift in the mail today.

Two more books from a new friend.

Two more books that need a home somewhere in my room.

The best/worst part is that all those books I mentioned owning in highschool? They’re still sitting in California, waiting for me to ship them all from my parents house to my house. I’m going to need a place for all those stories, because I love them all so much! My dream is to someday have one of those houses with floor to ceiling books in one room. There are inspiration pics all up and down my Pinterest, stretching back years and years. I think I had bookshelves pinned before I even had a wedding board. I just somehow never imagined what that awkward phase would be like where I have a good number of books but not enough for one big statement section. I also just graduated and couldn’t afford floor to ceiling bookshelves without selling a kidney sooo, maybe I need to go buy some lottery tickets? Who knows. None of it matters anyway because I’ll probably reorganize again by Monday and buy new books by the end of the week anyway. I guarantee my bookshelf arrangements will be completely different by midwinter at the latest. Do you have a collection of anything? How do you store it?