Fire & Flood by Victoria Scott
Publication Date: February 25th, 2014
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Pages: 304
Series: Fire & Flood
Source: Won-ARC
Rating: 4/5
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A modern day thrill ride, where a teen girl and her animal companion must participate in a breathtaking race to save her brother's life—and her own.
Tella Holloway is losing it. Her brother is sick, and when a dozen doctors can't determine what's wrong, her parents decide to move to Montana for the fresh air. She's lost her friends, her parents are driving her crazy, her brother is dying—and she's helpless to change anything.
Until she receives mysterious instructions on how to become a Contender in the Brimstone Bleed. It's an epic race across jungle, desert, ocean, and mountain that could win her the prize she desperately desires: the Cure for her brother's illness. But all the Contenders are after the Cure for people they love, and there's no guarantee that Tella (or any of them) will survive the race.
The jungle is terrifying, the clock is ticking, and Tella knows she can't trust the allies she makes. And one big question emerges: Why have so many fallen sick in the first place?
I read Scott's Dante Walker series earlier this year and was pleasantly surprised. What I loved most was her characters and that was definitely my favourite bits of Fire & Flood too. Her characters are very real and their voices/dialogue aren't fake. It's very age appropriate as well as personality appropriate.
Like with Tella, our MC, she's a bit of a princess. Kind of expects a certain lifestyle. But she would do anything for her dying brother. So when this random device shows up offering a chance to win a cure for her brother, she's on it. No question. I really did like Tella for that. She has no idea what she's getting into but she kind of just goes with it. She also knows that there's no way she can survive this by herself. She is not strong enough but she's not stupid. She is flawed though and just because she's made a choice to save her brother it doesn't automatically change her to an invincible, kick-ass heroine. She's scared and wondering if she'll even survive to have a chance at saving her brother. So this gives her the ability to grow and to adapt(as much as she can) to her environment. I felt like Scott accomplished that with Tella. She started to show changes when she started to realize what was important to get through this game and save her brother.
So this is where we start to get into this weird ass game. It's like a toss-up between Survivor and The Hunger Games. And I really can't say much about the point of the games because 1.spoiler and 2. I'm still a little confused. There was a bit of info. dumping at the very end of the book. So you do spend the whole time kind of confused as to the whole point of the games. I don't like being confused. But since Tella spends all this time wondering what the hell the point of the games is as well, at least it's not fault on the author for confusing me. It's on purpose.
Anyhow, the book pretty much gets right into the action and the games. So you've got over a hundred contestants dropped into the first round of the games. Which is a jungle. They're told they have two weeks to make it the center of the jungle where the base camp is. The first contestant there wins a prize. So off their sent to survive with nothing but this egg. And this egg is pretty damn cool. It turns out be like a Pokemon type hybrid creature called a Pandora. What these normal looking creatures(Tella's is a fox) can do just adds to epicness of the games and action.
Tella does eventually start to make friends and enemies. Odd sort of people and their Pandora's. And like I mentioned before, I think this is really where Scott excels; her characters. I think I'm a pretty character driven reader. So that's kind of the make or break for me. One of these friends, Guy, does become the love interest(it's pretty obvious from the beginning). Their relationship does start out pretty skeptical. And Guy is a very secretive guy. I did feel like it was a bit of insta-love. But this book isn't heavy on the romance and I did really like Guy. So the insta-love didn't bother me.
So shit goes down. People die. People betray "friends". Pandora's fight. Like I said, all pretty epic. And the book even continues on to the second round of the games. Which is in a whole different environment. With a whole bunch of new and brutal tasks and the harsh new landscape creates a different set of problems.
After the ending and finally getting some clarification of why these games take place I'm definitely pretty excited to get my hands on the sequel. I'm sure those game keepers are going to be seeing some rebellion come their way.
Happy reading!
Brittany
Like with Tella, our MC, she's a bit of a princess. Kind of expects a certain lifestyle. But she would do anything for her dying brother. So when this random device shows up offering a chance to win a cure for her brother, she's on it. No question. I really did like Tella for that. She has no idea what she's getting into but she kind of just goes with it. She also knows that there's no way she can survive this by herself. She is not strong enough but she's not stupid. She is flawed though and just because she's made a choice to save her brother it doesn't automatically change her to an invincible, kick-ass heroine. She's scared and wondering if she'll even survive to have a chance at saving her brother. So this gives her the ability to grow and to adapt(as much as she can) to her environment. I felt like Scott accomplished that with Tella. She started to show changes when she started to realize what was important to get through this game and save her brother.
So this is where we start to get into this weird ass game. It's like a toss-up between Survivor and The Hunger Games. And I really can't say much about the point of the games because 1.spoiler and 2. I'm still a little confused. There was a bit of info. dumping at the very end of the book. So you do spend the whole time kind of confused as to the whole point of the games. I don't like being confused. But since Tella spends all this time wondering what the hell the point of the games is as well, at least it's not fault on the author for confusing me. It's on purpose.
Anyhow, the book pretty much gets right into the action and the games. So you've got over a hundred contestants dropped into the first round of the games. Which is a jungle. They're told they have two weeks to make it the center of the jungle where the base camp is. The first contestant there wins a prize. So off their sent to survive with nothing but this egg. And this egg is pretty damn cool. It turns out be like a Pokemon type hybrid creature called a Pandora. What these normal looking creatures(Tella's is a fox) can do just adds to epicness of the games and action.
Tella does eventually start to make friends and enemies. Odd sort of people and their Pandora's. And like I mentioned before, I think this is really where Scott excels; her characters. I think I'm a pretty character driven reader. So that's kind of the make or break for me. One of these friends, Guy, does become the love interest(it's pretty obvious from the beginning). Their relationship does start out pretty skeptical. And Guy is a very secretive guy. I did feel like it was a bit of insta-love. But this book isn't heavy on the romance and I did really like Guy. So the insta-love didn't bother me.
So shit goes down. People die. People betray "friends". Pandora's fight. Like I said, all pretty epic. And the book even continues on to the second round of the games. Which is in a whole different environment. With a whole bunch of new and brutal tasks and the harsh new landscape creates a different set of problems.
After the ending and finally getting some clarification of why these games take place I'm definitely pretty excited to get my hands on the sequel. I'm sure those game keepers are going to be seeing some rebellion come their way.
Happy reading!
Brittany
I am so glad you liked it. I haven't read Scott's other books because the covers kind of threw me off, but this one sounds great. I bought it just recently, looking forward to it!
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