Review: Ashes to Ashes

Ashes to Ashes
Authors: Jenny Han, Siobhan Vivian
Published: September 16th, 2014
Hardcover, 387 pages
4 Gold Stars

(summary from Goodreads)

New Year's Eve ended with a bang and Mary, Kat, and Lillia may not be prepared for what is to come.

After Rennie's death, Kat and Lillia try to put the pieces together of what happened to her. They both blame themselves. If Lillia hadn't left with Reeve... if Kat had only stayed with Rennie... things could have been different. Now they will never be the same.

Only Mary knows the truth about that night. About who she is. She also knows the truth about Lillia and Reeve falling in love, about Reeve being happy when all he deserves is misery, just like the misery he caused her. Now their childish attempts at revenge are a thing of the past and Mary is out for blood. Will she leave anything in her wake or all that remain be ashes? 

The end of a series is always bittersweet and it normally takes me a long time to finally open it up and read it in fear that I won't be happy with how it will end. The Burn for Burn series has stood out from the beginning. It started out very contemporary with three girls out to seek revenge on those who have wronged them and quickly turned into its own genre. The ending of the first book showed us just what Mary was made of and the end of the second told us Mary was probably not who we thought she was. So in the last book, Ashes to Ashes, took everything we know and proved us wrong about what we thought was going to happen. It's hard to write this without spoilers because there are a lot of parts of the last book that ruined the series for me and parts of how it ended were not what I was looking for when I went into this book.

Kat was immediately my favourite of the three girls. She didn't take anyone's shit and throughout the events that happen through the series, she grew as a character the most for me. She realized what they were doing was wrong and I could feel her regret after what happened at the New Year's party. Mary could have been a great character. I wish she had been able to forgive Reeve for how he treated her and to move on from everything that happened. Her story took the strangest turn that I wasn't expecting and still am not very happy with. I think I understand why the authors did it, but I'm not sure I liked it. With Lillia, I was never really a fan. She got too much handed to her and every guy seemed to fall so easily in love with her. In the end, when she still has two guys fighting over her, I was kind of just done with it and did not care who she ended up with (though I'm not happy with who she ended up with, I was hoping he'd end up with Kat). So much happened on this tiny island and it made for a whirlwind read that was not predicable at all. These girls certainly knew how to piss people off and their schemes ruined more than they thought they would. Yes they went too far, yes they realize what they did was bad, but who doesn't want to make people pay for what they did to you? I certainly would never do anything like this, but it's fun to read about people who took that leap and did it.

This series stands out on its own and I think I'll eventually re-read the whole thing together to see if I can catch hints of certain things before they are revealed. The ending was very realistic, no super happily ever afters here, and thought I wish some things were different, I understand why it had to happen. It's worth the read to finish off the series and get some answers, so don't not read it guys, no matter what awful things you may be reading about it.

"Years from now this will be what I remember when I remember my spring break senior year. It will be this moment right here. The smell of chlorine on his skin. The way the sun dips into the water before it disappears. The first time I ever told a boy I loved him."