Together We Caught Fire

Together We Caught Fire - by, Eva V. Gibson

*Unplugged YA Box - February 2020*

This book came in the February 2020 Unplugged YA Book Box (obviously - that's literally the subtitle, but I'm trying to be consistent here). It arrived with a signed bookplate from the author (yay!).

What the dust jacket wants you to think this book is about:

Lane is a high-school senior with some issues, the biggest of which being that she's been pining after Greyson McIntyre since just about forever. Okay, so it's a little more complicated than "girl likes boy". It's more like "girl likes boy, boy becomes stepbrother, we're all horny teenagers, fuck this sucks (but not literally, because pining)". Oh wait, there's more! Greyson's girlfriend is also Lane's friend. She isn't her best friend, not really, but she's kind of her only friend so it still counts. Oh, and her friend's brother is also hot and very cool and now Lane isn't sure what she wants.

Now, to be honest, I wasn't sure about this whole thing based on what I gathered from the dust jacket. Lane and Greyson are very recently made into step-siblings, so it wasn't really the faux-incest thing that bothered me. It just didn't seem like the kind of book that I'd enjoy. I don't often read Contemporary YA and when I do it tends to be *Very Gay* and *Very Happy* and this whole premise just looked like a setup for a trash-fire of disaster. So, understandably, I was initially content to set this aside to be forgotten among the jungle heap of my TBR Cart until I was forced to unhaul it to make room for more books later down the line. Maybe I'd pick it up one day, maybe I wouldn't, but I wasn't too concerned one way or the other. 

Then my best friend, who also got the Unplugged YA box for this month, started to read it and I - in true petty me fashion - did not want to be left out. So, here we are.

What this book is actually about:

Lane is a young adult with a HELL of a lot of issues, the LEAST of which being that she's got the hots for her step-brother. Oh, don't get me wrong - it's a major plot point of the book and it comes up on a regular basis - but that's not what this book is about. This book is about trauma. This book is about what happens to you when everything starts out bad, then gets weird, then gets worse - all while navigating the hellways that make up the years between 15 and 25 (on average, because obviously some people are overachievers and have to start early or continue on with the disaster far past the initial onset). This book is about her issues, as well as the peripheral issues of the other major characters she interacts with (namely: Greyson, Sadie, and Connor), and how they all hurt each other and help each other and how none of it makes sense but all of it does at the same time. 

One of the things that intrigued me about the book, and kinda pushed me to read it, was that the author included a page of trigger-warnings at the very beginning of the book. It wasn't so much that I wanted to read something full of trigger-warnings, but rather that I felt that an author who had the consideration to include that page certainly deserved at least 50 pages worth of my attention to see if I liked the book enough to complete it. 

Things I Liked About This Book (in no particular order):

• Lane's family. Probably one of my favorite things about this book, to be honest, was Lane's family (yes, including you Greyson you twit). I loved that her family were practicing pagans, but that she was agnostic and there was no tension there. I loved that she got along really well with her dad and that they ran a stall at the craft market. I loved that literally the only point of contention she had about the restructuring of her family was that she had a major lady-boner for her new brother (I mean, okay, so not a small issue, but still). Most of all, I loved the relationship that we got to see form between Lane and Skye (who was written to be an actual person, thank you).
• That Greyson wasn't the hot jock/sexy douchebag everyone fawned over. It was literally just Lane that was mooning over him (well, and his girlfriend, but girlfriends don't count). He's a nerdy witch boy obsessed with attaining a 4.0 GPA and who passive-aggressively smudges when he's frustrated (which is a lot).
• Connor Hall. Hands down, favorite character. He my boi. *keeps him*
• The fact that Sadie's bullshit/issues is legit acknowledged by everyone at least once, and has consequences. It would have been so easy to make Sadie an antagonist and leave it at that, but I appreciated that her actions were acknowledged by the other characters. There was one particular instance where I thought "If she gets away with this, I'm 2-starring this book no matter how much I love Connor", and while her and Grey are certainly subplot to what's going on with Lane, it isn't just ignored or brushed under the rug either. 
• The ending. Without getting too spoiler-y here, I just really appreciated the choices that the author made regarding the characters, their motivations, and their choices and priorities. I thought it was realistic in an actually healthy way - which was a very good way to balance out the disaster-tram that was the rest of this book and their decisions leading up to it. I liked that you could see their growth toward where they all ended up.

Things I Didn't Like About This Book (also in no particular order):

• Sadie, for about 85% of the book. Yeah, she just really annoyed me as a person. I hated the way she treated both Grey and Lane. We got a few glimpses into her good traits but it was a bit choppy, like the author would randomly "oh yeah, I should probably let them know why Grey dates her and Lane is friends with her to begin with". Mostly, we hear Lane and Grey singing her praises but we just see the ugly side of Sadie.
• That I was teased with an LGBT+ character and didn't get one. Also, how that all played out. This was the hardest one for me. At the beginning of the book, we're told that Connor left home because he was gay - which threw me for a loop because the dust jacket kinda painted him as this other love interest option for Lane (who is cis-female). It's revealed, then, that this isn't true and it was just a rumor that the youth group kids made up about Connor as revenge for turning their back on them (declaring himself atheist and then subsequently getting kicked out of his house by his dad). I have so many issues with this. There were so many other ways this could have been done. Instead, I spent 70 pages thinking I was going to be getting what I theorized as being a bisexual character only for him to be completely straight and the whole thing was some weird sick joke. It was glossed over, and the characters made weird platitudes to reassure the reader that of course there's nothing wrong with being gay, then we moved on. It was literally a plot device to lower Lane's defenses, her thinking he was gay and off the table, so they could form some kind of friendship connection before she could consider him as a potential sex partner. I'm not going to go into all the other ways this could have gone, and what I wished could have happened. It just really, really bothered me.

There were other things that I didn't love in this book, but nothing that I actually saw as an issue. In general, though, I thought this was a really good book - one that I will likely go back and reread at some point if only so I can get a fuller picture of Lane's evolution through it all. When I read books I tend to just be along for the ride. I'm trying to get better about that, but right now I mostly just sink into the story without thinking to hard about it unless something really sticks out to me. It's on the second read of a book that I really start to notice things.

What I find particularly impressive is that this is a debut author. She clearly shows a lot of care for her characters and she thinks through (most) of her plot decisions very well. I loved how distinct each character was, and I enjoyed following them. I'm curious to see what she comes out with next - and (I can't believe I'm saying this, considering half this damn book) I'd be interested in reading a Sadie/Grey story just to see what happens with that. 

On Goodreads I rated this book 4/5 - though it's more of a 3.75/5. It could have been a 4.5, but the fakeGay thing just rubbed me all sorts of wrong.