Burning Girl (Messud) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Messud writes with insight about how female friendships dissolve, and about things like how terrifying certain stray fThe Burning Girl is an oddly distant novel. Its tone is formal and ultimtel unconvincing.… This is the first of Messud's novels that didn't, on a regular basis, flood my veins with leawsure. Its the first Messud novel I might have, if I could have, put down before the end.
Dwight Garner - New York Times


Julia voices the novel’s leitmotif: that everyone’s life is essentially a mysterious story, distorted by myths. Although it reverberates with astute insights, in some ways this simple tale is less ambitious but more heartfelt than Messud’s previous work.… [H]aunting and emotionally gripping.
Publishers Weekly


In giving the sole narration to Julia, Messud somewhat paints herself into a corner, as the accounts of Cassie's experiences told to Julia through Peter include a level of observational detail that defies plausibility.… [B]road appeal for teens and adults alike.  —Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Messud’s entrancing, gorgeously incisive coming-of-age drama astutely tracks the sharpening perceptions of an exceptionally eloquent young woman navigating heartbreak and regret and realizing that one can never fathom "the wild, unknowable interior lives" of others, not even someone you love.
Booklist


(Starred review.) Messud…suggests that we never truly know another, not even those we love best. That stark worldview…seems more overwrought than events call for…but by the novel's closing pages it packs an emotional wallop. Emotionally intense and quietly haunting.
Kirkus Reviews