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A review by tinybluepixel
The Ones We Burn by Rebecca Mix
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.5
Hoooh boy. Okay. Rebecca Mix can be happy that I read some truly abysmal books this year, because otherwise this would be my worst book of 2022.
Let's start off with the proverbial elephant in the room: Yes, the racism is there. Yes, the antisemitism is there. No, I don't think it was intentional. Is it disappointing? Is it infuriating? Is this book deserving of the "hate" it gets? Yes, yes, and yes. (Side note: Calling something out for racism and antisemitism is not, and will never be, "hate" or "cancel culture"). I am not the right person to talk about this. I am a white atheist. My sexuality doesn't matter, it doesn't change the fact that I am not the right person to talk about racism as it pertains to this particular book. There are other people who have done so, far better than I ever could, and I have read their reviews on this book before I ever considered picking it up. I read their reviews during my reading, and I read their reviews after I finished reading, always comparing. If you are interested in reading this book, please read these reviews. They are there. I will link some below, too.
The Ones We Burn (TOWB) is a book that gives off the message that it was a book written to have a book written. A book for a movie deal. A book that serves the sole purpose of the author having a book out. It has about as much soul as the Divergent Trilogy. The plot is reminiscent of the fanfiction I wrote when I was twelve. The characters are cardboard cutouts walking around a world that is comparable only to Disneyland: Pretty on the outside, but there's nothing behind. No substance. No importance.
Where's the passion? Where's the story this tells? Where's the necessity, the moral of the story? This book is a collection of tropes and hashtags that Mix taped together with ducttape to make pretty Tiktok videos. Oh, your book is 1. sapphic, 2. enemies to lovers, 3. knife to throat (but make it sapphic)? Okay, what else? Nothing? I figured. (I didn't make that up. I took that directly from the author's twitter page).
An example: Our main character is a witch. The witches are being oppressed and persecuted by the humans. Yet for some reason it is custom that each ruler marries a witch, and has done so for generations. Why? Oh, just because! There's no reason given. If the humans hate the witches so much, why are they fine with their ruler marrying one? Why do they demand it? Why is it necessary? So the author can get the plot point of the witch being engaged to the prince, that's why. So there's a "reason" for the main character to go to the capital and live in the palace, no matter how flimsy that reason may be. And the entire book is like that. (And the land the witches live in is called ... Witchik. I am losing my mind.)
TOWB is a collection of empty little rabbit holes, conncected together by the hollowest of plotlines. And nothing even comes of these plotlines! This book has an astounding number of chapters; eighty, to be exact. 80. Eight-zero. At exactly 460 pages, that's an average of 5.75 pages per chapter. Personally, I don't understand short chapters at all, but it seems to be a trend on booktok, so I guess the short chapters were another checkmark off the list of things to throw together to make the perfect marketable book. The actions of these characters barely get any depth, because the chapter is over after three pages and the plotline is abandoned. Nothing gets the attention it deserves, because every time we get smoewhere, there's a cut - and the next chapter begins. It's ridiculous.
Normally, in a book like this, the characters are its saving grace, but they aren't. The only ones that are worth to even pay attention to are Galen and Percy, and even they fall flat. Ranka, our main heroine, is probably meant to be some kind of anti-hero, but she isn't. She's just ... empty. Lifeless. Her supposed "blood magic" feels useless. She is constantly hyped up to be some kind of super-killer, when in reality she's just pathetic. She is defined by the people around her, the people who imbue her with the barest hint of personality until the chapter ends and she's alone again. A vessel for the reader, meant to be relatable because she's oppressed. Her two personality traits are 1. being oppressed and poor, and 2. being a "ruthless killer".
Where's the worldbuilding? Oh, the (white) witches are oppressed and persecuted. People want them dead for being witches. Okay? What's the background? What's the history? "Oh, it was always like that. They just always hated each other."
I don't understand it. Is this meant to be a metaphor to real life, or is it just a plotline from other fantasy books borrowed to make this book seem more "gritty" and "relevant"? There's entire countries we don't know the relations of. Why? What's the base, the groundwork, the infrastructure of the worldbuilding? Once again, it comes back to TOWB reading like a book written for the sake of having written a book.
Furthermore, how can any author living in the USA of twenty-fucking-twenty-two look at a story they are writing and conciously make these choices? I went on twitter to see if Mix had posted something about it, and she did, denying that racism and antisemitism are present in the text, and that their one black sensitivity reader would've caught it.
Excuse me? One singular black sensitivity reader? On a book with two black main characters, with this kind of plotline, in this political climate, in the year of our lord 2022? I don't understand very well how publishing works. But if this is how it is ... Man. Don't really have the words. Guess I expected more. Guess I shouldn't have.
And even though the main character eventually changes her mind, the things remain. The words are still on the page. The insults are there, black-on-white. In general, I think I understand what Mix wanted to do here: To have a character that is proven wrong, and ends up changing her mind once she receives more information. However, I am of the opinion that this backfired, and it backfired spectacularly, especially when it comes to the heavy promotion this book receives.
Once again, this proves that just because I want a book to be good (especially a wlw book) it won't necessarily be. And just because the author is part of the lgbt community doesn't mean that their books won't be
So ... yeah. I have many more thoughts. I have no more words to express these thoughts. Maybe I'll add on to this once my brain has cooled down a bit. But for now, I am just extremely disappointed and ... pretty angry, actually. In conclusion: No one should support a racist book, but even disregarding the racism (which one should never do) this book is really, really bad.
Please refer to these reviews for more thoughts that are not mine:
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4812626829?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4814072828?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4810285214
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4760062162?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1
Here's the author's explanation on twitter:
- https://twitter.com/mixbecca/status/1546496302430683137?cxt=HHwWgoCwjbCMofYqAAAA
Let's start off with the proverbial elephant in the room: Yes, the racism is there. Yes, the antisemitism is there. No, I don't think it was intentional. Is it disappointing? Is it infuriating? Is this book deserving of the "hate" it gets? Yes, yes, and yes. (Side note: Calling something out for racism and antisemitism is not, and will never be, "hate" or "cancel culture"). I am not the right person to talk about this. I am a white atheist. My sexuality doesn't matter, it doesn't change the fact that I am not the right person to talk about racism as it pertains to this particular book. There are other people who have done so, far better than I ever could, and I have read their reviews on this book before I ever considered picking it up. I read their reviews during my reading, and I read their reviews after I finished reading, always comparing. If you are interested in reading this book, please read these reviews. They are there. I will link some below, too.
The Ones We Burn (TOWB) is a book that gives off the message that it was a book written to have a book written. A book for a movie deal. A book that serves the sole purpose of the author having a book out. It has about as much soul as the Divergent Trilogy. The plot is reminiscent of the fanfiction I wrote when I was twelve. The characters are cardboard cutouts walking around a world that is comparable only to Disneyland: Pretty on the outside, but there's nothing behind. No substance. No importance.
Where's the passion? Where's the story this tells? Where's the necessity, the moral of the story? This book is a collection of tropes and hashtags that Mix taped together with ducttape to make pretty Tiktok videos. Oh, your book is 1. sapphic, 2. enemies to lovers, 3. knife to throat (but make it sapphic)? Okay, what else? Nothing? I figured. (I didn't make that up. I took that directly from the author's twitter page).
An example: Our main character is a witch. The witches are being oppressed and persecuted by the humans. Yet for some reason it is custom that each ruler marries a witch, and has done so for generations. Why? Oh, just because! There's no reason given. If the humans hate the witches so much, why are they fine with their ruler marrying one? Why do they demand it? Why is it necessary? So the author can get the plot point of the witch being engaged to the prince, that's why. So there's a "reason" for the main character to go to the capital and live in the palace, no matter how flimsy that reason may be. And the entire book is like that. (And the land the witches live in is called ... Witchik. I am losing my mind.)
TOWB is a collection of empty little rabbit holes, conncected together by the hollowest of plotlines. And nothing even comes of these plotlines! This book has an astounding number of chapters; eighty, to be exact. 80. Eight-zero. At exactly 460 pages, that's an average of 5.75 pages per chapter. Personally, I don't understand short chapters at all, but it seems to be a trend on booktok, so I guess the short chapters were another checkmark off the list of things to throw together to make the perfect marketable book. The actions of these characters barely get any depth, because the chapter is over after three pages and the plotline is abandoned. Nothing gets the attention it deserves, because every time we get smoewhere, there's a cut - and the next chapter begins. It's ridiculous.
Normally, in a book like this, the characters are its saving grace, but they aren't. The only ones that are worth to even pay attention to are Galen and Percy, and even they fall flat. Ranka, our main heroine, is probably meant to be some kind of anti-hero, but she isn't. She's just ... empty. Lifeless. Her supposed "blood magic" feels useless. She is constantly hyped up to be some kind of super-killer, when in reality she's just pathetic. She is defined by the people around her, the people who imbue her with the barest hint of personality until the chapter ends and she's alone again. A vessel for the reader, meant to be relatable because she's oppressed. Her two personality traits are 1. being oppressed and poor, and 2. being a "ruthless killer".
Where's the worldbuilding? Oh, the (white) witches are oppressed and persecuted. People want them dead for being witches. Okay? What's the background? What's the history? "Oh, it was always like that. They just always hated each other."
I don't understand it. Is this meant to be a metaphor to real life, or is it just a plotline from other fantasy books borrowed to make this book seem more "gritty" and "relevant"? There's entire countries we don't know the relations of. Why? What's the base, the groundwork, the infrastructure of the worldbuilding? Once again, it comes back to TOWB reading like a book written for the sake of having written a book.
Furthermore, how can any author living in the USA of twenty-fucking-twenty-two look at a story they are writing and conciously make these choices? I went on twitter to see if Mix had posted something about it, and she did, denying that racism and antisemitism are present in the text, and that their one black sensitivity reader would've caught it.
Excuse me? One singular black sensitivity reader? On a book with two black main characters, with this kind of plotline, in this political climate, in the year of our lord 2022? I don't understand very well how publishing works. But if this is how it is ... Man. Don't really have the words. Guess I expected more. Guess I shouldn't have.
And even though the main character eventually changes her mind, the things remain. The words are still on the page. The insults are there, black-on-white. In general, I think I understand what Mix wanted to do here: To have a character that is proven wrong, and ends up changing her mind once she receives more information. However, I am of the opinion that this backfired, and it backfired spectacularly, especially when it comes to the heavy promotion this book receives.
Once again, this proves that just because I want a book to be good (especially a wlw book) it won't necessarily be. And just because the author is part of the lgbt community doesn't mean that their books won't be
So ... yeah. I have many more thoughts. I have no more words to express these thoughts. Maybe I'll add on to this once my brain has cooled down a bit. But for now, I am just extremely disappointed and ... pretty angry, actually. In conclusion: No one should support a racist book, but even disregarding the racism (which one should never do) this book is really, really bad.
Please refer to these reviews for more thoughts that are not mine:
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4812626829?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4814072828?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4810285214
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4760062162?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1
Here's the author's explanation on twitter:
- https://twitter.com/mixbecca/status/1546496302430683137?cxt=HHwWgoCwjbCMofYqAAAA