Patrick Ness - Burn

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Complex, subtle and gripping

I thoroughly enjoyed Burn. It is complex, subtle and brilliantly told.

The book is set in 1957 in a world very like ours, but where dragons have existed for centuries and have managed to form an uneasy but lasting truce with humans. Sarah and her father hire a dragon to do some heavy clearance work on their farm in Washington State. He turns out to be far more than a soulless “claw” (the insulting term for dragons used by some humans) and at the same time a fanatical assassin starts his journey toward Sarah who, it turns out, will be a girl in exactly the right time and place to fulfil a prophecy that such a girl will prevent the destruction of the world.

A gripping and excellently told story ensues. It sounds like the rather common use in young people’s literature of a traditional mythical structure: the Light and the Dark with a young mediator on whom the fate of the world depends. Patrick Ness brings more subtlety and complexity to it than this, though. There are shades of good and bad everywhere and he makes excellent and timely points about racism, homophobia and other prejudices. He also gives a fine portrait of the grooming of a fanatic and the dishonesty which lies behind it.

Ness has never shied away from darkness and tragedy and there is certainly some of that here, but there are also fine, human and redemptive themes, some of which are genuinely moving.

When he’s at the top of his game, few can match Patrick Ness in this genre. He is close to the top of his game here and I can recommend Burn very warmly.

(My thanks to Walker Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)