Mary: Whew, hello. Here we are to talk about Vincent Tirado’s Burn Down, Rise Up. This is their first novel, but they had another one come out in May of this year. 

The book follows Raquel, a teen who’s undergoing several crises all at once. Her mother is in the hospital with a deadly, mold-like infection and getting worse every day, and her friend Charlize’s cousin Cisco has gone missing. On top of all that, Raquel has the average teen stuff going on—will her crush like her back?—etc. Soon, the group of friends discovers a dangerous game that might be behind the recent disappearances—as well as Raquel’s mom’s condition. The only way to stop what’s happening is to dive into the game for themselves and face the atrocities of the past.

I’ll be up front—I had SUCH a hard time getting through this book. I’m not sure if it was my mood, or the release of Tears of the Kingdom, or what, but it felt very, very slow. What were your big impressions?

Spoilers to follow.

Emily: I will also be frank. I had heard a lot of things about how great this novel was. But the writing was not great. I’m okay with straightforward, bare-bones writing, but this was next level. I had a hard time picturing anything. I had a hard time knowing who any of these characters were. And yes, I get that what the novel is saying (and we can get into that later) is important, but the message of this story was so heavy-handed. 

I really hate being this harsh on any novel, but I especially hate to do that when it’s a book by a queer author of color. But since you asked, yeah, those were my impressions.

Mary: Reading about a virus (which isn’t ever really defined as a virus, is it?) after experiencing a pandemic just… wasn’t the vibe. Instead of being chilling or offering reflective analysis of anything, the infection Raquel’s mom had seemed like a weird one-off. No one else seemed to have it like her—as in, no one else was hospitalized. I don’t know. It just didn’t make sense to me.

Emily: That’s funny. I didn’t question that at all. But yeah, I guess it is difficult to understand how what’s going on with Raquel’s mom connects with what’s going on with “the game.” And when I first read about this book, I really thought the game was going to be a more interesting part of the story. Like all of these teens are secretly participating in this dangerous game with complex rules or something.

But that’s not really what’s going on at all. The game is just like… go here at this time and then just keep walking and don’t stop. It was hard to understand how this was a game at all. Maybe this is just a fault of my expectations. But it wasn’t very exciting.

Mary: It had the tone of various internet challenges that have gone viral but ultimately been hoaxes—like, what was it, the Momo challenge? I’m super interested in the wild world of internet hoaxes and rumors and strange mysteries, but Burn Down, Rise Up didn’t get into that side of things much. Some of my favorite parts of the book were the message boards, though! 

I agree about the heavy-handedness of it all. The rot, the infection, it’s all pointing back to a bigger issue in the history of the Bronx. The Bronx fires of the 1970s were very real, but I found myself wanting more of an explanation both of what happened and why they were so culturally significant. 

Emily: See, and I feel like it was overexplained. I feel like the book is very clearly trying to drive home the point that gentrification is erasing Black communities and harming people of color. Which is such an important and real issue, and this historical moment is just one of many examples of this. I can see how the author was inspired by this story, and I can see why this historical moment is ripe for a horror story. But yeah, as I mentioned earlier, this was so heavy-handed. 

Mary: I’m having a hard time articulating my feelings about this book, but it felt simultaneously like not enough information to explain what was going on and too much information delivered in a preachy way. A lot of the preachy-ness came from Raquel’s dad, who seemed like a history book of knowledge just ready to spout off at any minute. It felt frustrating. 

Emily: Yeah, see, this was one of the characters I’m talking about when I was like who is this person. I had trouble understanding who he was outside of a history lesson. 

Mary: I think you’re right about this piece of history being ripe for horror, though. It could have had a Candyman vibe, which I think marries social context and horror well.

What was the deal with the man in corduroy? He’s menacing, but also he was just a nice guy that died? Is the Echo the afterlife? Is the Slumlord an actual person? What’s his goal in death? Do any of these questions get answered, or am I just dumb?

Emily: No, I think that was confusing as well. I think this is where Tirado ran into an issue with having the main character haunted by the victims of this fire. Like, on the one hand they’re scary and menacing, but on the other hand, they’re victims. That’s the weird thing about ghosts.

Oh, and can we talk about the kids they run into underground when they’re playing the game? Speaking of creepy victims. These kids have been underground for so long that they’ve lost all of their humanity, and they’re scary. But also they’re kids and what’s happened to them should be sad. But instead, it’s just like, ew, these kids are annoying.

Mary: YES! I similarly felt so annoyed and confused by them. I just didn’t understand how they fit into the larger scheme of things because there was no freeing of them, no redemption, just some gross kids causing problems and trying to be cannibals. Also, cannibalism being played as a joke? Not fun in this context. 

Emily: One thing we haven’t discussed yet: the romance. Raquel and Charlize have a little flirtation/romance developing, but Raquel’s best friend is also interested in Charlize. But I guess too bad for him because Charlize is gay. How did we feel about the friendship/romance element in this story?

Mary: Oh right! I did appreciate that they worked it out in the end, respectfully, but like. I did not need a romance here, really, or at least didn’t need a love triangle. If the situation is really life or death, I’m not sure how much romancing would be going on. Also, if Charlize is gay, that should be the end of that convo, right? There’s not much you can do if your crush literally does not like your gender. 

I did think that the flirtation was cute, and it was fun seeing how nervous Raquel was from her perspective, but it wasn’t enough to get me on board with the book as a whole, sadly.

Emily: Yeah, agree.

Mary: The biggest bummer was that reading this, I didn’t feel much of anything. I didn’t want to pick it back up after putting it down, but it also could have been worse. It felt off balance and stilted and ultimately didn’t work for me, but it did make me want a horror novel about these Bronx fires, and did make me want to know more—just not in the way the author probably intended. I gave it two stars.

Emily: I also gave it two stars. Bummed that I hated it, but excited to move on to a book we’ll hopefully like more.

Mary: I think we’ll really enjoy the next one! We’ll be reading Becky Albertalli’s new book, Imogen, Obviously, which seems to be a fun twist on YA books about gay characters who are worried about being outed. Imogen is worried all the cool queer kids she’s running with will find out she’s straight—but is she really?! I looooved The Upside of Unrequited so much I wrote about it in my dissertation, and this book seems to have some similarly clever and nuanced investigations of sexuality and young adulthood. If it’s not clear, I’m amped!

Emily: Me toooooo!