Burn Down, Rise Up
by Vincent Tirado
Sourcebooks Fire, 2022. 338 pages.
Review written November 28, 2022, from my own copy, picked up at ALA Annual Conference.
2023 Pura Belpré Award Winner
Burn Down, Rise Up is a scary paranormal novel set in the Bronx. It starts with a kid frantic, raving about breaking the rules of the game. He’s got black rot coming out of him and fights off a nurse and breaks out of the hospital.
That nurse is Raquel’s Mom, and she starts getting the black rot in her own lungs and gets put into a medically-induced coma. But at school Raquel’s friend Charlize is mourning her cousin who went missing.
Raquel, Charlize, Aaron, and Mario — all friends who used to spend time together, start researching and discover a Train Challenge, also known as the Echo Game. You go into your local subway at 3:00 am, follow certain rules including staying on the train until 4:00 am. If you turn around or get off, you’re going to get caught in the Echo.
In the Bronx, the Echo takes them back to the 70s, when the Bronx burned down because of slumlords not caring about their tenants. It’s a hellscape, with wounded dead people wandering around. If you attract their attention, they attack. Charlize thinks she sees her cousin and gets off the train. So then Charlize goes missing as well — just as Raquel realizes she’s attracted to her.
The idea is imaginative — an internet challenge that risks your life. I learned a lot about the Bronx in the 70s — and many horrible things that happened because of racism.
Now, I personally, like the rules of magic to be well-defined and understandable, and this didn’t really fit that. I wasn’t quite sure how Raquel figured out what she should try to do to save the people she loved. But I was sure that Raquel was in great danger and wouldn’t lose without a fight.
Amazingly, this is a debut novel. I think it’s a sign of great things to come.
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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.
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