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"Girl on Fire"
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“I fucking hate being contained.”
When a young girl’s pleas for help with her abuser fall upon deaf ears, one message becomes seared within her psyche. People are trash. At least that’s what daddy always told her. When Ruby Miller is old enough to put some distance between her and her estranged past, her plans are derailed by a freak accident while traveling the lonely road towards her new beginning. Her life hangs (upside down) in the balance, trapped in a flaming wreck, and when she finally emerges from the flames she realizes that she should have been dead… but comes to understand that she is the “Girl on Fire” instead. She is the phoenix from the ashes. The inferno begins to burn hot within her as she ruminates. People are trash - fans the flames of hate that fuels her carnage as her internalized rage explodes upon the world. Nothing can stop her and nothing can kill her, Ruby Miller is the fucking apocalypse in this novella by Gemma Amor.
When a young girl’s pleas for help with her abuser fall upon deaf ears, one message becomes seared within her psyche. People are trash. At least that’s what daddy always told her. When Ruby Miller is old enough to put some distance between her and her estranged past, her plans are derailed by a freak accident while traveling the lonely road towards her new beginning. Her life hangs (upside down) in the balance, trapped in a flaming wreck, and when she finally emerges from the flames she realizes that she should have been dead… but comes to understand that she is the “Girl on Fire” instead. She is the phoenix from the ashes. The inferno begins to burn hot within her as she ruminates. People are trash - fans the flames of hate that fuels her carnage as her internalized rage explodes upon the world. Nothing can stop her and nothing can kill her, Ruby Miller is the fucking apocalypse in this novella by Gemma Amor.
Readability
“Girl on Fire” follows a simple plot that offers some hints along the way that there is more going on than meets the eye in the overall scope of the narrative. The story is well written from the first person perspective of four distinct characters. The novella is neatly structured, with each character given their own separate section in the book. The chapters are short and the story is well paced and easy to read. There were minimal writing errors to speak of.
Creativity
I can’t elaborate on Amor’s creative style in “Girl on Fire” without first pointing out the obvious, which is her use of symbolism. I mean the whole phoenix rising from the ashes trope has been done to death (pun intended), but I enjoyed the believable evil spin she put on it instead of going for heroic cliché. The way in which Ruby’s character acquires her “fire” is not something original to most female empowerment stories, but the way Amor uses metaphor to make conceptual ties made me shudder to think:
I open my mouth to scream again, but this one is wordless, and the fire invades me, licking the back of my throat, filling me up from the inside out. It is too much. It is too much. Pain. Burning. I close my eyes. I die.
Her prose never struck me as too flowery, and the story is character driven. Helen and Cat’s characters are introduced in a way that seems to penetrate the fourth wall. I thought the way in which it was done made it so the characters were able to share some backstory without it coming off as just an info dump, by introducing some new aspects to the story that put me in a state of wonder. This kind of suspenseful technique kept me burning through the pages.
Delivery
I’m not going to lie. I went into this story with bias expectations, and the very first two lines of the book did not fail my inclinations based on the synopsis.
When I was a kid, my Daddy took me for a walk in the woods behind our house one afternoon. This was before I learned not to trust my Daddy, or go anywhere alone with him if I could help it.
There’s the one/two punch that fuels virtually every feminist narrative: sexual assault victim & daddy issues. I bit my tongue and pressed onward. How bad could it really be, I said to myself. Ruby’s introduction ends with:
I have been brought back from the dead for a reason. A mission. To clear the world of trash. And how do we get rid of trash? We burn it. We burn it all.
My first impression entering into chapter one was that I was in for a real dumpster fire of feminist revenge porn. A story riddled with anti-patriarchal/anti-traditional and all around misanthropic or nihilistic rhetoric, bolstered by vapid intersectional themes and motivated by a message based on fruitless vanity/pride. In other words, I was preparing to eat a grilled shit sandwich, and then promptly make my way to the toilet after I was done.
“Girl on Fire” proved me wrong in my cynical expectations, to a degree. Yeah, the story briefly flirts with the idea of lesbian affairs, but it doesn’t take over the narrative. It isn’t as anti-male as I thought it was going to be, but it is certainly anti-family and little effort is made to illustrate some juxtaposition. Ruby’s “Daddy” is just used as an object of ridicule in a half-hearted attempt to justify her villainy, totally reminiscent of the days when basic cable television would do the same thing to propagandize against housewives. Statistically, the imposter stepfather trope would have been more believable (instead of shitting on fathers) but that’s just splitting hairs for lack of a better idea in this context, which was clearly meant to shock the reader and add a touch of humanity to the main character.
What I actually found shocking, was that this isn’t really a story about demonizing men; nor is it a story about hailing women as divine icons that need to be worshipped. “Girl on Fire” is about a character who is let down by the people she trusted the most. It’s about the psychological manifestation of a freak, a monster, or an “anomaly” - as described by what I assume are a secret Area 51esque group of characters hot on Ruby’s trail. It’s a story about how Ruby has a negative impact on the environment and how that affects the fragile lives of the characters around her. A surprising level of depth from what I was expecting to be just some basic-bitch pulp fiction.
“Girl on Fire” follows a simple plot that offers some hints along the way that there is more going on than meets the eye in the overall scope of the narrative. The story is well written from the first person perspective of four distinct characters. The novella is neatly structured, with each character given their own separate section in the book. The chapters are short and the story is well paced and easy to read. There were minimal writing errors to speak of.
Creativity
I can’t elaborate on Amor’s creative style in “Girl on Fire” without first pointing out the obvious, which is her use of symbolism. I mean the whole phoenix rising from the ashes trope has been done to death (pun intended), but I enjoyed the believable evil spin she put on it instead of going for heroic cliché. The way in which Ruby’s character acquires her “fire” is not something original to most female empowerment stories, but the way Amor uses metaphor to make conceptual ties made me shudder to think:
I open my mouth to scream again, but this one is wordless, and the fire invades me, licking the back of my throat, filling me up from the inside out. It is too much. It is too much. Pain. Burning. I close my eyes. I die.
Her prose never struck me as too flowery, and the story is character driven. Helen and Cat’s characters are introduced in a way that seems to penetrate the fourth wall. I thought the way in which it was done made it so the characters were able to share some backstory without it coming off as just an info dump, by introducing some new aspects to the story that put me in a state of wonder. This kind of suspenseful technique kept me burning through the pages.
Delivery
I’m not going to lie. I went into this story with bias expectations, and the very first two lines of the book did not fail my inclinations based on the synopsis.
When I was a kid, my Daddy took me for a walk in the woods behind our house one afternoon. This was before I learned not to trust my Daddy, or go anywhere alone with him if I could help it.
There’s the one/two punch that fuels virtually every feminist narrative: sexual assault victim & daddy issues. I bit my tongue and pressed onward. How bad could it really be, I said to myself. Ruby’s introduction ends with:
I have been brought back from the dead for a reason. A mission. To clear the world of trash. And how do we get rid of trash? We burn it. We burn it all.
My first impression entering into chapter one was that I was in for a real dumpster fire of feminist revenge porn. A story riddled with anti-patriarchal/anti-traditional and all around misanthropic or nihilistic rhetoric, bolstered by vapid intersectional themes and motivated by a message based on fruitless vanity/pride. In other words, I was preparing to eat a grilled shit sandwich, and then promptly make my way to the toilet after I was done.
“Girl on Fire” proved me wrong in my cynical expectations, to a degree. Yeah, the story briefly flirts with the idea of lesbian affairs, but it doesn’t take over the narrative. It isn’t as anti-male as I thought it was going to be, but it is certainly anti-family and little effort is made to illustrate some juxtaposition. Ruby’s “Daddy” is just used as an object of ridicule in a half-hearted attempt to justify her villainy, totally reminiscent of the days when basic cable television would do the same thing to propagandize against housewives. Statistically, the imposter stepfather trope would have been more believable (instead of shitting on fathers) but that’s just splitting hairs for lack of a better idea in this context, which was clearly meant to shock the reader and add a touch of humanity to the main character.
What I actually found shocking, was that this isn’t really a story about demonizing men; nor is it a story about hailing women as divine icons that need to be worshipped. “Girl on Fire” is about a character who is let down by the people she trusted the most. It’s about the psychological manifestation of a freak, a monster, or an “anomaly” - as described by what I assume are a secret Area 51esque group of characters hot on Ruby’s trail. It’s a story about how Ruby has a negative impact on the environment and how that affects the fragile lives of the characters around her. A surprising level of depth from what I was expecting to be just some basic-bitch pulp fiction.
#LFLR Indie Rating: 7/10
I decided to read "Girl on Fire" because I was under the notion that it wasn’t written to be read by my eyes, and I like to go against the grain. However, after reading “Girl on Fire” I can honestly say that I think the story is a well written suspenseful thriller that doesn’t pander to anyone in particular. Gemma Amor is best known for writing horror, with some of her work having been nominated for the Bram Stoker award. Aside from contributing to multiple short story compilations, she has also written and illustrated a couple anthologies of her own.
I decided to read "Girl on Fire" because I was under the notion that it wasn’t written to be read by my eyes, and I like to go against the grain. However, after reading “Girl on Fire” I can honestly say that I think the story is a well written suspenseful thriller that doesn’t pander to anyone in particular. Gemma Amor is best known for writing horror, with some of her work having been nominated for the Bram Stoker award. Aside from contributing to multiple short story compilations, she has also written and illustrated a couple anthologies of her own.
THIS BREAKDOWN IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE #LFLR NETWORK.
