A review by lumie
Together We Burn by Isabel Ibañez

medium-paced

0.5

For the first time in my life, I really, thoroughly hated a book. And I don't use that word lightly. 

 

Together we Burn is the story of a girl (MC) and her family in a made-up place that is effectively Spain with a different name. They are the proud owners of a dragon fighting arena. We follow them through several disasters and their struggle to keep their family business alive; the family business of killing dragons for the entertainment of the masses that is.

 

Now, I'm Portuguese and we unfortunately share the culture of bullfighting with the Spanish. It's a highly controversial tradition in both countries (to say the least). Needless to say, I am one of many who is quite opposed to this tradition as I find it frankly barbaric and a black stain upon my culture. 

 

So I couldn't not, for the life of me, root for these characters. Quite the opposite actually, I spent the whole book hoping their endeavours would fail miserably. The MC is really quite unlikeable. Beyond being completely opposed to her choice of livelihood and the fact that she seems oblivious to any ethical dilemma, she is insufferable by nature. 

We are talking about a character who harasses the main male character (MMC), for days, completely disregarding the fact that he does not wish to fight dragons. She bribes him, guilts him, and manipulates him to ignore his principles for her economic benefit. This is naturally explained as good thing in the book, it's not a character flaw, she's just feisty™ and passionate. In fact the MMC later reveals how being pestered and having his principles disregarded is what made him fall in love with her… Peak romance for sure... 

 

Right at the start, the dragons her family keeps are released, causing a bloody massacre in the arena. Her response to the anti-dragon fighting activists who are rightfully protesting against the practice after such a massive loss? "... creating noise and dirtying the street with their discarded pamphlets." Oh yes, how dare they make a mess when your family is responsible for the death of DOZENS of people?! 

 

Later in the book, the dragons are released yet again, this time not only killing many but destroying half the village. Her response? "How dare they destroy our livelihood?" You mean the livelihood that was directly responsible for the killing and destruction of their town? Yeah how dare they be that unreasonable?! And we are supposed to be sympathetic? How?!

 

At around the 90% mark, we have an abrupt shift in opinion, suddenly the MC isn't so cool with the whole dragon killing thing. Why? Did we have explore the ethics of it all? Did we ask the difficult questions of dealing with a country/family tradition that causes needless suffering yet it's a fundamental part of your culture and your main source of income? Did we grapple with the dilemma of hating an animal because they killed your beloved mother, but also rationally understanding that perhaps they were put into a position that as a wild animal had no choice but to retaliate? 

 

Nah, she just found an alternative way of making a spectacle out of the dragons without killing them and suddenly (quite literally, it happens in a couple pages) all the arena cheers (yes that really does happens) and the culture is now changed! Amazing! Everything is neatly tied with a bow right at the end, making everything right with no consequences whatsoever!

 

Beyond that, the villain is a moustache twirling cartoon with an absolutely unconvincing motivation that come out of nowhere. In fact, I would even call it character assassination for the sake of a plot twist. Her beloved dad dies off screen and it's barely explored and frankly I could care less. 

Finally, regarding the writing:

 

Ibañez suffers from an acute case of Spanglish. It's the obnoxious insistence in writing random Spanish sentences only to have immediate English translations right after. An example: 

 

He has an angular, sharp face with deep, weathered lines forged by years in the sun and taming beasts. “¿Tienes un momento, por favor?” 
“Give me an update, Benito.” 

 

For those of us who can understand it, it's redundant. To those who can't, it surely breaks the flow of the story causing confusion. To all it breaks immersion: it's implicit that everyone is speaking Spanish though all writing is in English for the benefit of the reader. Yet, when there's a random Spanish sentence you can't help but think where they talking in English then and just happen to burst into Spanish randomly? It's just so clumsy, I'm astonished how this wasn't removed during the editing process. 

 

In conclusion, Together we Burn is a mediocre book that fails to do what it set out to do. It has annoying writing, horrendous characterisation and a boring plot full of stereotypes and a shallow comprehension of the culture it pulls from. 

0.5/5