Book Review: Bonfire

BONFIRE | Krysten Ritter
11.07.2017 | Crown Archetype
Rating: 4/5 stars

Ten years have passed since Abby Williams has stepped foot in her hometown. Abby had a childhood she wanted nothing more than to forget and since packing her bags and heading to make a life in Chicago, she hasn’t needed to look back. Now working as an environmental lawyer, she finds herself traveling home to Barrens, Indiana.

Optimal Plastics is the town’s high-profile company, which brought with it an economic revolution for Barrens. Abby and her team are convinced that there is more to Optimal than meets the eye and that they are covering up the amount of waste being dumped into Barrens’ reservoir. As Abby works to uncover information about Optimal she starts to find a strange connection to the disappearance of Kaycee Mitchell. She was the most popular girl in Barrens ten years ago and after falling ill she suddenly ran away from home. In a small town secrets are buried deep and Abby must revisit old memories to unearth the truth about both Optimal and Kaycee.

The problem is that people think in black and white. They think they can have the good without the bad, but everything that’s good for one person is probably bad for someone else. Life isn’t like the Bible says it is. It isn’t a choice between good and evil. It’s about choosing which evils you can stand.

BONFIRE is one of those small town mysteries that instantly sucks a reader into the town’s web of tangled secrets and deceptions. Immediately the reader can sense Abby’s reluctance to head back home, so you’re aware something traumatic must have happened in her past to create this feeling. As the reader continues through the pages, the full extent of her anxieties comes to light in a way that unfolds well alongside the present day mystery.

Abby Williams is a strong-willed character who will quit at nothing to prove she is correct about a cover-up happening in connection to Optimal. She may not have all the facts, but her gut guides her to them eventually. Abby’s journey to the truth is filled with tension and hard confrontations with herself. I loved her unstoppable determination for finding out what shady business Optimal is up to, as well as digging into Kaycee’s disappearance. The way the two scandals co-align together results in a fantastic ending to this story! BONFIRE is the perfect reading choice if you enjoy small town mysteries, gossip, and a tangled web of lies!

There are people in the world who squeeze and the ones who suffocate.

Additionally, I listened to BONFIRE as an audiobook and cannot help but rave over the narration of Karissa Vacker! I thought she did a great job bringing Abby to life and would definitely be interested in other books she has narrated.