Ashes to Ashes (Burn for Burn Trilogy, #3)

by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian

[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

Having loved the first two books in the trilogy, I was so eager to read Ashes to Ashes by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian - especially with how Fire With Fire ended! And I am so pleased to say Ashes to Ashes was absolutely gripping!

Lillia, Kat and Mary are reeling from Rennie's death. Lillia and Kat are buckling under their grief, and Mary has gone MIA. What they don't realise is that Mary is a ghost, and she finally discovered it when she drove Rennie's car off the cliff, and it didn't end her torment. Feeling guilty over what happened with Rennie, Lillia tries to stay away from Reeve, but they can't fight their feelings for each other, and Lillia and Kate become closer friends over their shared grief and the loss of Mary. But Mary sees everything. Now she knows what she is, now she understands her power - now she realises she did die when she attempted to kill herself over Reeve's bullying - she's determined to get the revenge she feels she deserves. Her life is over because of Reeve, it's now time that his was, too.

Oh my god, Ashes to Ashes is so, so good! I absolutely loved it! It was brilliant, but I expected the epicness to start right from the get go, considering Mary now knows what she is, but she hardly shows up for the first half of the book. There's a lot of time where she just blacks out, so there's no narration from her for a big part of the book, just the odd chapter here and there. But I think this works really well; it gives things to kind of settle for Kat and Lillia, they miss their friend, and they're both suffering with their guilt and grief, but life isn't about revenge any more, it's about friends, graduating high school, and getting into their chosen colleges. And it also works for Mary because when she does have chapters, we see how her anger increases and increases as she sees Reeve's happiness with Lillia, and this evil person she becomes as she learns more about what she can do. She is so twisted and cruel, and it's pretty horrifying, the extent to which she's willing to go. If it wasn't for the fact we've had two books previously to get to know the real Mary, Ashes to Ashes would be close to being a horror novel, because she is just so bloody terrifying in this book.

The climax to this book was epic! Oh my god, it was just mind blowing! Seriously something straight out of a nightmare, it was so horrific! I could not change the pages fast enough! However, I do think the ending was too abrupt. I would have preferred there to be at least one extra chapter at the end that dealt with the immediate aftermath of what happened, rather than jump straight to the Epilogue. I also wanted more from the Epilogue. It was too short, and some things were too convenient, I felt, a little too nicely wrapped up. And some things didn't go the way I wanted them to for certain characters, but that's a personal preference.