The Burning

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Overall a fantastic touching novel that is super relevant with its feminist themes and ideas about the internet, the trolls who use it and what can become of this. Per uno strano motivo Anna si trova coinvolta fin troppo e comincia a fare delle ricerche che, in un certo senso, la salvano dalla gogna che sta subendo a scuola. Unlike O’Neill, though, Bates allows her heroine to have the last word. In a cinematically rousing culmination, Anna turns on her harassers. It is particularly satisfying that Simon, the originator, is given no arc of redemption, though the reader glimpses the nastiness of his father early on; and that the headmaster who dares to suggest that Anna’s choices somehow justified her subsequent treatment is verbally eviscerated by her furious mother. This is a hard and challenging read, but its power and necessity are impossible to deny.

The Burning by Laura Bates - Teen Librarian Toolbox Book Review: The Burning by Laura Bates - Teen Librarian Toolbox

Another interesting plot turned into something complicated, messy, okay WTH I just read kind of story! Anna e la madre si trasferiscono in un piccolo paesino della Scozia, Saint Monans, dopo alcune vicissitudini che le hanno costrette ad abbandonare il Maine. Bates, Laura (12 June 2015). "Queen's Birthday Honours List: Knights Outnumber Dames Five to One". The Guardian. It's worth knowing that sometimes people see you as a symbol of something instead of a person. And, when they do, it reflects on them, not you.” a b Hines, Sophie (5 December 2013). "Laura Bates Wins Ultimate New Feminist 2013" . Retrieved 20 August 2014.

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The author didn’t shy away from harsh issues or sugar-coat what it would actually be like in real life. I really liked the honest portrait of young people and how they act and treat each other in a bad situation, and the horrible language often used. However, it did not affect me personally as a reader, as you often hear these derogatory terms in school. It’s worth knowing that sometimes people see you as a symbol of something, instead of a person. And, when they do, it reflects on them, not on you’.

The Burning | Book by Laura Bates | Official Publisher Page

Trigger Warnings: This book features rape, non-consensual pornography, sex shaming, victim blaming, bullying, discussion of abuse due to abortion, and discussion of death from cancer.

Una volta arrivati a Saint Monans, mentre la madre trova subito un ambiente fertile di rapporti e di amicizie nel lavoro, Anna fatica molto a lasciarsi andare e anche quando trova amiche nuove rimane sempre un po’ sulle sue per paura di soffrire un altro tradimento come quello che le hanno fatto le sue amiche del Maine. Anna was drawn to Robin, a boy in one of her class, but I love how the story didn't center around their love interest or relationship. I'm especially glad that the author didn't turn the story around and make the main character a helpless young lady who needed to be saved by a boy or by love, but instead showed strong female character traits in both Anna and her mum towards the end when handling the situation. I'm not ashamed of my body. I'm ashamed of the way my body was treated by everybody else. I'm not embarrassed because it's sexual. I'm embarrassed because it's being used in a way I didn't agree to." The author uses real and explicit language to emphasise what bullying in this era is actually like. I’m used to hearing language like this and have become desensitized to it because it is so common. I liked the way there was no filter as it feels more like a real-life setting.

THE BURNING | Kirkus Reviews THE BURNING | Kirkus Reviews

I want to stay here, in the quiet, clean darkness, forever until everybody has forgotten that I even exist. In a subplot Anna researches a young woman allegedly burned at the stake for being a witch in 1650 in a story that mirrors her own. She dreams Maggie’s story before learning the facts. The most implausible reason Anna’s past caught up with her made me wonder why Bates took the story in that direction. I really enjoyed the intermingling of the two time lines, the comfort Anna found in researching Maggie's story and the self belief and confidence she found along the way. I am always intrigued by any book that finds parallels with history in a modern problem and The Burning did that very well. It follows Anna, a teenage girl, who has moved away from a big city to a small fishing village in the East Neuk of Fife in Scotland. Anna and her mother have moved to escape the fallout from an incident involving the very real dangers of modern technology. She then begins to find out more and more about a girl who lived in the village hundreds of years ago who was accused of witchcraft. This book filled me with dread--and loneliness--and hope. I had to relive my own past, thinking about how rumors had impacted me during junior high and high school, and how different those would have been if social media had existed then.I wasn't so keen on the ending, either, unfortunately. It's more that I didn't find the reaction to what Anna does quite believable, I just don't think it would have happened like that. Maybe it's end the story on a hopeful note, but I had various question marks over it - would Anna have actually have done that? Would she have said what she said? - and it just felt a little unrealistic? But maybe that's just me.