Review by Booklist Review
Ruiz-Grossman's debut novel follows characters as their lives collide amidst devastation and heartbreak. Well-off grant writer Abigail is about to turn 50, living in Berkeley with her wife, Taylor, and teenage son, Xavier. When one of her projects fails to gain funding, Abigail plans a fundraiser birthday party to make up the gap. In another part of the city, Sunny and Willow live in a van as they cling to the hope that their low-income housing application will be approved while Willow copes with past trauma. Xavier, meanwhile, navigates the challenges of senior year along with a deepening connection to transfer student Mar. When a fast-moving wildfire tears through Berkeley during Abigail's event, the diverse characters are directly in its path, and all are left struggling to forge ahead in the complex aftermath. For Abigail and Taylor, it's confronting their crumbling relationship, for Xavier, it's coming into his own, propelled after an encounter with Sunny. As the characters' paths twine with fervor, Ruiz-Grossman's engaging tale offers a vivid exploration of modern-day disparities within the timeless and universal search for belonging and self-determination.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Ruiz-Grossman's captivating debut chronicles a wildfire's impact on a diverse set of residents of Berkeley, Calif. Abigail, 50, organizes a fund-raiser at a friend's house in the Berkeley Hills for a mixed-income apartment building on the city's west side. She hires Willow, a young woman who ran away from home as a teen and who Abigail met while volunteering at a soup kitchen, to serve drinks and food at the party. Willow lives in a van with her boyfriend, Sunny, a fellow runaway, who picks up occasional construction work. The night of the gala, Willow warns Abigail that a series of fires are getting dangerously close to town. Abigail ignores her, even as an ominous glow creeps closer to the party, until she receives an evacuation notice on her phone. Meanwhile, Abigail's teenage son, Xavier, is home nearby with his girlfriend, Mar. An intense parallel narrative develops involving Abigail's delayed reaction, Willow and Sunny's effort to escape the blaze, and the disaster's impact on Xavier and Mar. It's a gripping page-turner with a surprising twist, as a set of disgruntled survivors form an unlikely alliance and take drastic action. The complex characterizations and realistic scenarios converge to deliver a satisfying punch. Agent: Sharon Pelletier, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Feb.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Brief scenes, spanning the perspectives of diverse characters representing Berkeley's socioeconomic strata, sound an alarm about the threats posed by climate change. Having covered climate and social justice issues for HuffPost, first-time novelist Ruiz-Grossman is well equipped to depict the devastation wrought by the wildfires that recently threatened heavily settled areas of California. Here, a conflagration suddenly leaps into a bougie neighborhood in the Berkeley Hills. Directly in the line of fire is a soiree organized as a combo birthday party/fundraiser by Abigail, a committed if tone-deaf affordable housing advocate. She's hoping to convince a developer to include low-income housing in a building nearing completion. In attendance are Abigail's partner, Taylor, a one-time tech whiz who cashed out to become a stay-at-home mom, and their son, Xavier, now a high school senior. Recognizing that her role has become redundant, Taylor is edging into a what's-it-all-about phase. As the marriage falters, Xavier falls for a classmate, Mar, a climate activist whose passion for ecology is matched by her ardor for social justice. Tossed into the mix is a mutually devoted homeless couple: Willow, a wan, dispirited 34-year-old survivor of childhood sexual trauma, and her dogged protector, Sunny, a sometime construction worker who wears a locket with her photo on a chain around his neck. The characters are introduced via brief glimpses framed within their individual points of view, but it's a safe bet that--as in a formulaic disaster movie--their paths will eventually cross. Apart from one genuinely dramatic scene--caught unaware mid-tryst, the teens have no choice but to hurl themselves out a second-story window--the interactions unfurl ploddingly. The character sketches are thin, amounting to a collection of traits. The depiction of the mutually devoted van-dwelling couple, in particular, is sentimental to the point of insulting. Though the novel is timely, even environmentalists may find its tone overly didactic. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
