The Burning Girl (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Canadian Phillips's challenging first novel, a dense literary fantasy, requires two readings—first to appreciate the sensuous prose, second to get some idea of the plot. On release from the hospital, Ryder "Rye" Coleman has inexplicable cuts and scars all over her body that sometimes open when she feels feverish, making her bleed. She also suffers from synesthesia and amnesia. When Rye follows a man home after he saves her life in an alley, he provides her with a fantastic explanation for all the strangeness: a refugee from another world persuaded the two of them to help foil a plot to conquer Earth, then betrayed them. Rye soon discovers that she has the unique power to travel from world to world, though she can't control it—and that makes her valuable to the people in the alley, who kidnap her and her savior, Bardo, an ex-cop with secrets of his own. Rye's fevered, synesthesiac dreams create an internal world as vivid as the book's external world, though it's often hard to tell them apart. Phillips is also the author of a story collection, In the Palace of Repose (2005). (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Rye Coleman, 22, emerges from a hospital after seven weeks of fever and bleeding from lesions all over her skin with a six-year hole in her memory. Working a job distributing advertising fliers, she vaguely recognizes a man she follows home as the fever and bleeding return. He and Rye were involved with a so-called witch from another world, one of three linked by a gate that Rye somehow facilitates. War between two of the worlds could engulf the third, Earth, and who controls the gate affects all three. Phillips treats what may seem a rather routine sf/fantasy setup utterly originally, focusing on Rye's amnesiac, semidelirious perspective to the exclusion of other points of view that might explain what is going on and why. The stories in In the Palace of Repose (2005) were so understated, cool, and congenial that Phillips' violent, harsh, and febrile first novel comes as a shock, perhaps especially on the last page--unless, of course, you savor uncertainty, having your sense perceptions scrambled, and brutal disillusion. Genuinely extraordinary. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: Prime Books (April 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809550652
• ISBN-13: 978-0809550654
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,822,334 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Original, Surprising & Beautiful, January 15, 2007

By	Constant Reader (Gloucester MA) - See all my reviews

The publishers' reviews above give you an idea of the plot, but not of the beauty of the writing or the way that it blends together the fantastic, impossible, and purely human to create a book that (I found, at least) lingers with you long after you've finished it. We begin with Rye, suffering from amnesia but more importantly synesthesia, a disorder in which sight, sound, touch and taste all merge and change places in her 'fevers,' leaving her inhabiting a world where the everyday is bizarre-- and then the bizarre starts happening. As Rye and her manipulative, guilt-ridden guardian/lover/betrayer Bardo shift from one world to another, she searches through her own madness and the happenings around her to try to untangle the truth before it's too late for her. In the end, tho', it's Rye and Bardo's humanity that makes this book worth reading, and the simplicity of the emotions with which the story ends. I read a *lot* of scifi/fantasy; I thought this was outstanding when I read it, and a month later I still find myself thinking about it. Definitely an original, and well worth reading.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A balance of dream-like writing and an intelligent sci-fi plot, this book is dense, violent, and beautiful. Highly recommended, March 29, 2009

By	Juushika (Oregon, United States) - See all my reviews

After a long hospital stay, Rye is released, her body covered in lesions, suffering a fever that causes synesthesic hallucinations, with no memory of the past six years. With the help of someone she used to know, she begins to regain her memories--only to discover that she was once tied up in an interstellar war that crosses parallel universes and the boundaries of human consciousness. A balance of wild, vivid, dream-like storytelling and a detailed, intelligent sci-fi plot, this is a complex book which more than rewards the reader for the effort of reading it. It is vivid, violent, meaningful, and simply wonderful. Very highly recommended.

However extensive Rye's synesthesic hallucinations, no matter how far the plot strays from our perceived boundaries of the world, this book is science fiction. Based on reviews and summaries, I came to it expecting fantasy. The lack thereof threw me off at first, but it works out for the best. The Burning Girl is a careful combination of precise detail and incredible imagination, each aspect balancing and complimenting the other. Fiery hallucination, vivid cross-wired perception, flashes of amnesia and dreams make for a wild ride, but they're balanced by incredible detail, realistic characters, and an intelligent, sensical sci-fi plot. The combination of the two gives method in the book's madness.

Yes, that's a lot to cram into one book, and so the text is sometimes dense and confusing. It's not a beach read, but nor is it impenetrable. Pay attention and be tolerant of momentary confusion, and the text will come to make sense--and it more than rewards the reader's effort to read it. In a word, The Burning Girl is incredible. From the empathetic characters to the rich language to the story--which hits so hard that it's like a fist in the gut--this book is a wildfire, brightly burning, violently destructive, and beautiful beyond words. I feel blessed to have stumbled upon it, and I recommend it highly. This is not the sort of book which will appeal to all readers, but if it does appeal to you, do yourself a favor and pick it up.