[Review] Rory Power’s Burn Our Bodies Down

We are one of the most complex things on the planet, so why do we build boxes and force ourselves to fit them when it comes to media? No one is just one thing, we are all an amalgamation of our choices, and desires, fears, and anxieties. Tropes are built around common patterns, but sometimes when they’re everywhere you turn, we get into the rut idea that we need to conform to those tropes to be successful.

Recently, however, I have had the great pleasure to be on a streak of reading trope-breaking stories. More specifically, books centered on incredibly complicated, usually anger-driven women. Women fueled by spite and survival instinct, who don’t have a lot of time to be the sugar-sweet innocents they might be expected to be. They break boundaries in their own worlds, and show readers that it’s okay — even necessary — to break boundaries for ourselves. Breaking is part of the building that shows us who we are.

Rory Power’s Burn Our Bodies Down is a veritable tapestry of complicated, troubling, self-serving, fiercely protective women. To read it is to be immediately swept into a Gothic, sprawling family drama all brought to its boiling point in Margot, a young woman on the hunt for answers about her roots. For as long as she could remember, it’s always just been Margot and her mother. Their relationship is love wrapped in thorns, dependence, and fear. Margot’s mother is secretive about her past and forceful in her belief that her and Margot are all they need to survive. Fed up with the lack of answers, spurred on by an explosive fight and a clue from a pawn shop, Margot goes hunting for the family she never knew and finds far more secrets than she bargained for.

An atmosphere that slowly weaves its tendrils around you the further you go into the haunting town of Phalene, inexplicable tones of Wicker Man and Children of the Corn all blended in with a bit of We Have Always Lived in the Castle make for an unforgettable read steered along by an equally unforgettable narrator in Margot. Rory Power’s sophomore offering showcases her strengths beautifully. Burn Our Bodies Down is an intense examination of family, connection, and finding meaning in identity told through an unconventional labyrinth of one woman’s mind as she simultaneously learns and unlearns everything she thought she knew. The only constant is uncertainty, and fire.

Keep the fire burning, it’s the only thing keeping us all alive.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Delacorte Press, and the author for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.