Fire & Flood (Fire & Flood, #1)
by Victoria Scott
Publishing date: February 25th 2014
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Tella Holloway is losing it. Her brother is sick, and when a dozen doctors can't determine what's wrong, her parents decide to move to Montana for the fresh air. She's lost her friends, her parents are driving her crazy, her brother is dying—and she's helpless to change anything.
Until she receives mysterious instructions on how to become a Contender in the Brimstone Bleed. It's an epic race across jungle, desert, ocean, and mountain that could win her the prize she desperately desires: the Cure for her brother's illness. But all the Contenders are after the Cure for people they love, and there's no guarantee that Tella (or any of them) will survive the race.
The jungle is terrifying, the clock is ticking, and Tella knows she can't trust the allies she makes. And one big question emerges: Why have so many fallen sick in the first place?
There is always a lot of hype around Victoria's books. Last year I read The Collector and I wasn't impressed. I decided to give Victoria's books one more try and read Fire & Flood. And again, I'm not impressed, even though, I liked Fire & Flood more than I liked The Collector.
What got me interested in Fire & Flood in the first place is the idea of race, add to it a creepy name like Brimstone Bleed and you have me sold. But you know what? Just a great idea is not even nearly enough for a good book. Yes, I did like the idea of this book, it's pretty clever you know, but if I have a problem with almost everything else, then something is not right. Fire & Flood started out horribly. I wanted to DNF the book after every page I read. Seriously, it sucked that much. But I kept thinking, okay just a little bit more, it has to get better. And it did, approximately 100 pages later.
This is how it started: a blue box mysteriously appeared on Tella's bed with a strange device in it, but she doesn't get to hear the message because her dad takes it from her and decides to burn outside. But the device remains intact and she gets to listen the message and gets her invitation to Brimstone Bleed, a race she has to win to get the cure for her sick brother. Even though her parents clearly know about it, it doesn't cross her mind to ask them about it, instead she takes off without any knowledge about it and joins the race. What I had problem with is that we also don't know anything about it, well not until almost the end of the book. The world building, although with a lot of potential, is poorly done. It's like reading a book about medical surgery and you clearly see the steps of what is going on in the present, but you have no idea what the surgery is for, what happened to lead to that surgery and what are the consequences of that surgery. You're pretty much in a reading fog where you follow the story but don't actually know a damn thing about it. You get the picture.
The next thing I had problem with is the main character, Tella. She frustrated me to no end. She's in the middle of jungle, and she's thinking about shopping. Really, sometimes she was the biggest airhead. I did feel her progress as a character, but she is still far away from likable.
From this review so far, it may seem like I didn't like anything, but I did. I think the story after the first 100 pages was REALLY interesting! I couldn't stop reading. Everything was happening so fast, it kept my attention at maximum and I was constantly wondering what will happen next. I really loved Pandoras and the idea of them. They reminded me of Pokemons so much, and I love Pokemons!
Even though this book gave me serious headache at the beginning and I can't give it a bigger rating than 2 stars, I came to like it in the end and I know I will be reading the sequel because I just HAVE to know what will happen in the next book. If you want to read it, go ahead. It's not that bad like it may seem from my review, but I just had to mention all the things that bugged me.
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