Nothing Burns as Bright as You by Ashley Woodfolk
Product Details
Web ID: 17689053A Love Letter to BIG Feelings
"The push and pull has always been a part of us. The running away. The coming back. But I am only realizing, in this moment, that I haven’t moved. I’ve been standing here, Loving you, This whole time. ” For two best friends, this year has been a dumpster fire– while one copes with major depression, the other shuts down emotionally due to her chronically absent parents. The only highlight? They’ve had each other by their side the whole time. But when the lines between friendship and romance begin to blur, their relationship quickly turns treacherous and an all-encompassing love begins to devour them whole. Without an outlet for emotions that often run high, they begin to set fire to everything around them – literally and figuratively – but there might not be much left when the ash settles. They’ll answer the question: How much can change in a day? This book is a love letter to BIG feelings and that specific kind of teenage melodrama that roots itself deep in your chest. This relationship is so perfectly complemented by the novel’s use of verse, which speaks to the visceral quality of hormone-injected first love. This kind of love is famously a breeding ground for toxic relationships and heartbreak which is what makes Nothing Burns as Bright as You such a vital read. With love so intense, Ashley Woodfolk creates a much-needed space for queer young women to feel seen and validated in their experiences. All too often LGBTQ+ fiction situates itself on either side of a polarized spectrum: queer fairytale, or homophobia-induced trauma. Here, Woodfolk opts for something much more fluid. She depicts a relationship where their queerness is casual, and the contentiousness is the result of two passionate, deeply in-love individuals who just can’t seem to find equal ground. At the heart of this work lies the power that resides in knowing your wants, desires, and most of all, your needs when navigating emotionally volatile terrain.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Toxic relationship, not for me
Thank you to Clarion Books, Versify, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this title. This is a novel in verse. At times, the writing was stunning and always, it was captivating. Overall, the story flowed well, but there were a few times when I wasn't sure whose side of the story I was reading. For the longest time, I thought there was only one narrator, but every once and a while the voice and structure changed. This interrupted the flow for me. The biggest problem I had with this book was that the relationship between the two main characters was so toxic and one-sided. I understand that there is a need for this type of story, but it just wasn't for me.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Beautiful
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I have read very few novels in verse but I'm so glad i picked this one up. It so perfectly captures the teenage love experience, that even at almost thirty, it brought me right back to that feeling, The out of control, but you never want it to stop way. I highly recommend this book to any reader looking for a romance that inst quite, and just something that will be a little different than anything you've ever read before. Than you to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Compulsively Readable
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. Nothing Burns as Bright as You is a testament to queer romance, the complexities of female friendship, and the tragedy (seemingly) unrequited love. It's often joked among sapphics in the LGBTQ+ community that sapphics had an oddly intense and all-consuming friendship with another girl in their teenage years that ended catastrophically, giving a hint to a part of their identity they hadn't yet understood. Nothing Burns as Bright as You is a novelized record of this small yet immense aspect of queer girlhood. Ashley Woodfolk depicted all the seemingly unexplainable aspects of these not-quite-relationships with heartbreakingly elegant prose. I found myself highlighting and annotating almost every single page of this book because every single line of writing in this book was earth shatteringly beautiful and struck me to my core. My heart broke and was strung back together along with the unnamed characters of the novel. When the characters relationship was going up in flames, I felt the licks of fire too; when their relationship was going well, I felt relieved because like the primary narrator of this book, I too felt foolishly hopeful that things would work out for the two of them. Woodfolk has proven herself a literary talent multiple times in her other books, and this book is no less impressive.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
The Power of Love Across the Ages
5 stars In this verse novel, Woodfolk employs style, structure, diction, and character development to arrive at an important focal point: the passionate and explosive nature of relationships. Though readers are restricted from some typical details, Woodfolk still manages to create an overpowering sense of intimacy and revelation throughout the piece. The characters start as friends, but their relationship evolves into much more than that, and the journey is not direct. Neither is the powerful conclusion. Woodfolk effectively captures the all-consuming nature of young adult relationships here, but if we're all being honest, these are the kinds of things we just get a little better at managing - at least externally and sometimes - when we're adults. For me, this book is much more about a culmination of feelings than a series of events, and I really appreciate the inventive and arresting ways in which Woodfolk accomplishes this unusual task. I'll absolutely be recommending this one to students.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
A Beautifully Heartbreaking Love Story
Written in verse, this book really hits with all the feels. It's a beautifully heartbreaking story about first love. There's a certain...power that really pushes through with each word, each phrase, each page. Nothing Burns as Bright as You bounces back and forth between timelines adding in little truths and lies that connect the story of these two girls seamlessly. Little bits of the puzzle get told on each page and it really pulled me right along, I was genuinely unable to put the book down. While I did feel that the strength of the words got blurred roughly midway through the book, overall this story just felt...right, like their first kiss. "It just felt right. Like sun on sea-wet hair. Like paint thick and bright on canvas." There is no way I'm able to do this book justice with any review I leave so I'll just say this...read it. Truly, read it. Thank you Clarion/Versify for the ARC to read and honestly review!
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com