Burn Out (Burn Out, #1)

by Kristi Helvig

[bookishzelda]

Wow this book was over before I even realized I had even reached the end. Honestly I flipped a few more pages thinking. Wait what, no there has to be more I’m only halfway through. Turns out, no it’s not a 500 page book Burn Out just had me that captivated. Seriously…

So we have Tora, she’s living alone in this underground bomb shelter of sorts, except for the fact that she’s packing a loaded secret room full of guns that could blow up a whole planet and then some. This shelter is not your typical let’s store some cans on a shelf variety either. She’s got all kinds of cool gadgets and safety precautions to keep her safe. The down side...she’s alone and the Sun has gone off into Super Nova status (perhaps not that but I forget my sun cycles) the punch line is the sun is at the end and it’s scorching the earth that you burn to crisp if you step outside with protection. With the untimely death of her mother and sister and then the murder of her father Tora is left to fend for herself. She’s doing so pretty well actually but there are people who want the guns. Which leads to all kinds of dangerous situations and crazy discoveries. There’s a new planet but will Tora ever get to it.

This book was pretty crazy. I think it was bending my mind because it had that thriller aspect to it. You never knew who to trust and I had these images of people walking around in the dark killing each other. One time you would think this guy was okay and then he would shoot at you, then this gal seemed top notch and then she would punch you. that’s not exactly how it happened but you get the jist. You can trust no one ever. So it messes with your head in that respect. You feel almost as tired as Tora trying to sort through who is good and who is bad and besides that what the heck has happened since Tora has been under ground in general.

I liked Tora a lot. She has a lot of snark is pretty well adjusted for someone who has been trapped underground by herself. She obviously has trust issues thankfully but at the core of it all she is a good person. She also can be pretty bad ass if she wants to be but not completely perfect. That 40 minutes a day of walking hasn’t done much for her Stamina. She’s resourceful and easy to root for.

The other characters all have their plus and minuses but like I said since you couldn’t really trust anyone there were often times I felt afraid to get attached to them. I don’t want to give too much away because this is one of those books you really need to form your own opinions about them because of the nature of what is going on. I’m not even going to mention the romance because it’s complicated and I felt afraid for Tora. I really did not want to see her get screwed over.

This book has some unanswered questions at the end, that I’m assuming are going to be answered in future installments. As I said I wanted to keep flipping and have more pages appear. I’m excited to continue on with the series to find the answers I’m looking for.

For a sci-fi enthusiast like me I would definitely recommend this book to you. With the Earth being destroyed it also has it’s dystopian element too.