Burn for Burn

Title: Burn for Burn
Author: Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian
Series: Burn for Burn #1
Read: April 13, 2014

Summary: Postcard-perfect Jar Island is the kind of place where nobody locks their doors at night, where parents can sleep easy, knowing their daughters are tucked away safe and sound in their beds.

But bad things can happen, even to good girls . . . and sometimes, the only way to make things right is to do something wrong.

Lillia used to trust boys, but not anymore. Not after what happened this summer. And she’ll do whatever it takes to protect her little sister from the same fate.

Kat is over the rumors, the insults, the cruel jokes made at her expense. It all goes back to one person--her ex-best friend. Someone needs to teach her a lesson, and, with Lillia and Mary behind her, Kat feels up to the task.

Four years ago, Mary left Jar Island because of a boy. But she’s not the same girl anymore. Now that she’s got friends who have her back, he's going to be in big trouble.

Three very different girls who come together to make things right. Will they go too far? goodreads

Review: This story is told through three different perspectives of three very different girls. Lillia is the popular one who is starting to see that her friends may not be who she thought they were. Kat is the rebel who has recently been hurt by a popular boy and has a grudge against Lillia's best friend (because they all three used to be besties but then Kat was kicked to the curb.) And Mary is the new kid who is returning to the island after leaving due to a traumatic incident. All three girls are thrown together for one goal and one goal only: revenge.

I liked the premise of this story. It's very high school. Girls start to mature and realize that maybe things aren't what they really thought. They start to realize that maybe they were too bitchy to the girl who wasn't exactly like them. And sometimes, if we are really lucky, they start to make amends. Some of that happened in this book. But mostly, these girls realized that the people who deserve it, aren't getting what's coming to them and they want to do something to correct that.

The revenge starts out simple but gets a little more extreme as the story goes on. The story leads up to homecoming night where they make their final big moves and things go very, very wrong. Then the story ends. We don't know what happens to each person or the consequences. Things get out of hand and then the story ends. Now, I appreciate a good cliff-hanger as much as the next girl but this was ridiculous. I also understand that this is part of a series and meant to entice me to read the next one but it doesn't. I'm just frustrated. There should have been some sort of ending.

The one other issue I had with this book were the weird Carrie moments that Mary was having. They only happened a couple of times and were finally addressed (albeit briefly) in the big homecoming mess but I thought it was too random and didn't see this book going that way. Of course, I don't know anything about this aspect of Mary or her life because it was only briefly mentioned and then the story ended but I found it very odd. And a little bit of a rip off from my beloved Stephen. Needless to say, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

I will not be continuing the series even though I do want to know what happens to these girls. I liked the characters and the story was told well and moved along quickly. I'm just not interested enough to keep going. If anyone has read this and would like to let me know what happens, I'd be open to spoilers!