A review by fatimak
Our House Is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis by Svante Thunberg, Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Ernman

2.0

I'll be honest, I didn't love this book. This was perhaps due to my own misunderstandings about what this book would be when I first came across and requested it on NetGalley. The book lists Greta Thunberg, her sister, and her parents as co-authors, and so I expected a cowritten account of the family's journey to their well-known climate change activism. To some extent, this was the case, and it was clear that there was collaboration between all members of the family to produce this book. However, the account is written entirely from the perspective of Greta's mother, Malena (including chapters that describe events where Malena wasn't present and she is describing what happens from the point of view of other family members, which read kind of strange, in my opinion), and a significant portion of the book is an account of Malena's life and experiences, which, honestly, I just wasn't that interested in. Certainly, it was interesting to read about the family's journey and struggles, and I particularly admired the candid way that Malena talks about mental health and autism. There are some really important discussion here about the realities of living with autism and the lack of understanding and research around it. It was also interesting and incredibly inspiring to learn about how Greta has been able to overcome so many struggles to get to the position that she is in today, where she delivers interviews and speeches to thousands of people and has had such a resounding impact on so many people's understandings of climate change. However, I found that the book was a bit all over the place. At some points, it read like Malena's memoir, while at other points it focused on informing the reader about the climate crisis. Chapters would jump back and forth between different topics without clear links between them. I think there'll be plenty of readers who enjoy this style but it personally wasn't for me and made it difficult for me to stay engaged. Overall, while there were certainly interesting points made in this book, I would probably recommend reading No One Is Too Small To Make A Difference and keeping up with Greta's online activism, instead.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.