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A Fire So Wild
With the emotional echoes of Little Fires Everywhere and the lush atmosphere of Disappearing Earth , a riveting debut novel in which a wildfire creeps toward Berkeley, California, igniting tensions as characters from all walks of life confront the injustices growing beneath the city’s surface. As a wildfire threatens Berkeley, the city’s inhabitants are forced to reckon with the cracks in the lives they've built. Abigail, a wealthy white woman, decides to throw a lavish birthday in a hillside mansion to raise money for the city’s newest affordable housing project—and prove to her family that she’s made something worthwhile of her life. Sunny, a construction worker who sleeps in a van along the bay’s shore, is in the running for an apartment in the complex—but only if enough funds are raised at the party to subsidize low-income rentals. As the heat and smoke from the approaching blaze descend upon the town, tensions rise and residents—young and old, haves and have nots—confront the inequities laid bare, and the fragility of building a life in a world on fire. Alternating among a colorful cast of characters, A Fire So Wild is a timely, tautly paced novel that questions why when everything burns, not everyone is left with scars.
208 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 20, 2024
66 people are currently reading
13074 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 290 reviews
March 5, 2024
This book made me cry, twice, so it's getting a 5 stars from me.
The writing style was very smooth and pleasant and the characters were interesting, some were endearing. While the book is an exercise in nuance in the end it's a pretty hopeful read so if you need a little hope..
The writing style was very smooth and pleasant and the characters were interesting, some were endearing. While the book is an exercise in nuance in the end it's a pretty hopeful read so if you need a little hope..
December 12, 2023
not just 2! 2.5! it's just...some debuts are tremendous, and some are demonstrative of potential, and some feel like an author just...finding their sea legs. this one is sea legs. it's a little bit of everything but devoid of any real focus. a lot of telling instead of showing; characters feel like ideas and stereotypes. i also had some editing questions - why use real streets, real colleges, real high schools....and a fake hotel in HMB? Also, please do your research! no sororities at Smith College - don't just have your gay characters to the "gay school." sloppy, lazy, borderline insulting.
February 16, 2024
A really solid debut and work of climate fiction. The book is short and moves through a year pretty quickly. I liked the premise a lot. Sometimes it drifts into a bit of predictable land. It needs a little more oomph.
April 4, 2024
I first came across this novel when I was browsing an issue of Book Page magazine. (I'm so grateful that my library gives them out for free.) I usually find a few titles that interest me, so I impulsively put them on hold at the library. It's fun to give them a try like a blind date with a book.
I really enjoyed this story, and I connected with the characters. In about 200 pages, it tackles climate change, the lack of affordable housing, and homelessness. It has diverse characters with a gay couple who have a black son, and a Hispanic family. There was a homeless couple who lived in a van. There are two teens in their senior year who already seem to know what they want to do with their lives. I love it when teens have a passion and have the courage to fight for a cause.
It alternates points of view that connect later in the novel, but sometimes the timeline jumps around. I got into a chapter, and suddenly, there was a break in the story where you're thrown into the past. I love flashbacks, but this style felt jarring, and I don't like the sudden disruptions. I also felt like a lot needed to happen when I only had 10 pages left to read. The ending was weak and abrupted, and there were questions left unanswered. Overall, it was enjoyable and kept me entertained, but there was a lot of opportunity to build the story to create more depth.
I really enjoyed this story, and I connected with the characters. In about 200 pages, it tackles climate change, the lack of affordable housing, and homelessness. It has diverse characters with a gay couple who have a black son, and a Hispanic family. There was a homeless couple who lived in a van. There are two teens in their senior year who already seem to know what they want to do with their lives. I love it when teens have a passion and have the courage to fight for a cause.
It alternates points of view that connect later in the novel, but sometimes the timeline jumps around. I got into a chapter, and suddenly, there was a break in the story where you're thrown into the past. I love flashbacks, but this style felt jarring, and I don't like the sudden disruptions. I also felt like a lot needed to happen when I only had 10 pages left to read. The ending was weak and abrupted, and there were questions left unanswered. Overall, it was enjoyable and kept me entertained, but there was a lot of opportunity to build the story to create more depth.
March 8, 2024
This was....ambitious...and just not very well done. I understood the goal but the characters were so 2D and the writing was so script-y and unrealisitic that it took me over a week to read 200 pages. I just didn't care the way Cli-Fi should make me care.
October 4, 2023
An exhilarating and incisive debut novel! A FIRE SO WILD is set in Berkeley, CA, where inequality is laid bare when a wildfire rips through the community. This is such an effective community story, with a cast of characters who are nuanced, flawed, and endearing all at once. Abigail is desperate, as she approaches her 50th birthday, to prove that her career in affordable housing has made a difference. But her wife Taylor is miserable in their marriage. Their son, Xavier, is an idealistic high schooler, a passionate bird watcher, and newly head over heels for the smart and fearless transfer student, Mar. Meanwhile, Sunny and Willow are an unhoused couple, struggling to get their footing while living out of their van. All of these lives intertwine on one fateful night. This book does an amazing job bringing the climate and housing crises into conversation, revealing how inextricable these issues are and how unequally they affect different people. Sarah Ruiz-Grossman crafts a fast-paced novel that manages to keep you turning pages and leaves you thinking long after it is over. I can’t recommend it more highly!
January 13, 2024
A great alternative for THE DELUGE if you don’t want to read 800+ pages of climate disasters
Vignette-style focusing on different POVs across race and class. Less character development but I appreciate the focus on the Bay Area & how individuals are impacted differently by climate change.
For Bay Area residents, this book will evoke a strong feeling of unequal land distribution, the housing crisis, wild fires, performative wokeness, and so much more 😭
Vignette-style focusing on different POVs across race and class. Less character development but I appreciate the focus on the Bay Area & how individuals are impacted differently by climate change.
For Bay Area residents, this book will evoke a strong feeling of unequal land distribution, the housing crisis, wild fires, performative wokeness, and so much more 😭
April 9, 2024
That A Fire So Wild is political is inescapable; the novel does not pretend otherwise, nor is it marketed otherwise. The book stands in front of the reader and says, "Look at all these people! Look at the ways tragedy disproportionately affects different populations! See how the youth is impassioned!" Each of these points is executed beautifully and skillfully; those who have the means to handle tragedy are free to be less concerned with it, are more out of touch, and create more friction with those who continue to suffer. The young act with the freedom and misunderstanding of the adult world, aggressive in their demands for change. Conflict surges between the youth generation and the adult generation, between the priviledged and the disadvantaged, and we are privy to the perspectives of each.
I have to ask then, why is it I don't care? Why is it, if I can identify all of these and register the conflicts and the political points, that I simply cannot be bothered to engage with this? Well, a few reasons. First, my patience with with multiple points of view is waning. Few novels I have found in the last eighteen months have effectively stayed within a single point of view, and I am growing frustrated with the refusal or inability to tell a story from one perspective. What do your characters lack that we are unable to exist exclusively in their individual world? A Fire So Wild may not be the novel in which to draw the line; its perspectives seem to have a purpose. However, the use of so many perspectives means I'm effectively watching a movie--observing a sequence of events between a cast of characters--rather than reading a book, where I might step entirely into the shoes of one character's world and experience the story myself. I'm sick of it. This cast of characters is unique; they are all distinguishable and offer something new. My second issue, however, is that they are also all incredibly self righteous. Each is one hundred percent confident that their view is the most accurate and valuable, causing each to be almost entirely unable to empathically engage with one another. Relationships, therefore, feel forced, fake, or intangible because the characters are unwilling to participate in them in a realistic way. Further, because we know what everyone is thinking and feeling, we are not particularly compelled to walk with the characters as they navigate conflicts about which they are confused and we are not. What's the point? We know what's wrong, we know each character's deficits in the eyes of their relations, and we know who we are supposed to align with.
Finally, the political drive being the primary force behind many characters' actions detaches them from relatability. For some, this may be realistic. A professor of mine once said, "If you have the privilege to wake up every day and not have advocacy be the first thing you think about, good for you." I get what she's saying. But there is something to meeting people where they are. This book is not intended for me, for meeting me specifically, and I know that. But I can't help but wonder who it is meeting, and how, when we pick up a book to try to escape the weight of what we are experiencing in the real world, it may be difficult to spend time in a world that is driven by political strife and grief.
I do want to end with a quotation that I feel is particularly valuable to recall, when a homeless character expresses frustration over the challenges he faces being noticed only after a natural disaster:
Look at me. Am I worthy to you now? Is this what it takes, now that some undiscriminating act of God took everything I had, am I allowed to need something?
This is, at its core, the central theme and commentary by the novel, and it is valuable to keep in mind.
I have to ask then, why is it I don't care? Why is it, if I can identify all of these and register the conflicts and the political points, that I simply cannot be bothered to engage with this? Well, a few reasons. First, my patience with with multiple points of view is waning. Few novels I have found in the last eighteen months have effectively stayed within a single point of view, and I am growing frustrated with the refusal or inability to tell a story from one perspective. What do your characters lack that we are unable to exist exclusively in their individual world? A Fire So Wild may not be the novel in which to draw the line; its perspectives seem to have a purpose. However, the use of so many perspectives means I'm effectively watching a movie--observing a sequence of events between a cast of characters--rather than reading a book, where I might step entirely into the shoes of one character's world and experience the story myself. I'm sick of it. This cast of characters is unique; they are all distinguishable and offer something new. My second issue, however, is that they are also all incredibly self righteous. Each is one hundred percent confident that their view is the most accurate and valuable, causing each to be almost entirely unable to empathically engage with one another. Relationships, therefore, feel forced, fake, or intangible because the characters are unwilling to participate in them in a realistic way. Further, because we know what everyone is thinking and feeling, we are not particularly compelled to walk with the characters as they navigate conflicts about which they are confused and we are not. What's the point? We know what's wrong, we know each character's deficits in the eyes of their relations, and we know who we are supposed to align with.
Finally, the political drive being the primary force behind many characters' actions detaches them from relatability. For some, this may be realistic. A professor of mine once said, "If you have the privilege to wake up every day and not have advocacy be the first thing you think about, good for you." I get what she's saying. But there is something to meeting people where they are. This book is not intended for me, for meeting me specifically, and I know that. But I can't help but wonder who it is meeting, and how, when we pick up a book to try to escape the weight of what we are experiencing in the real world, it may be difficult to spend time in a world that is driven by political strife and grief.
I do want to end with a quotation that I feel is particularly valuable to recall, when a homeless character expresses frustration over the challenges he faces being noticed only after a natural disaster:
Look at me. Am I worthy to you now? Is this what it takes, now that some undiscriminating act of God took everything I had, am I allowed to need something?
This is, at its core, the central theme and commentary by the novel, and it is valuable to keep in mind.
March 7, 2024
I realize this was a first novel but to me it was trite and heavy handed with not a moment of subtlety. It included every stereotype one has ever heard about Berkeley and presented over the top stories and reasons to protect against climate change.
May 8, 2024
I was into it for the first half…then I was ready for it to be over 😅 the message was abundantly clear and important, but the author seemed to make villains out of people doing their best, and just was not nuanced or subtle in the least. Not my favorite, but not a bad book.
April 30, 2025
♡ this book had powerful themes… but i didnt fully connect with it ♡
3/5 ⭐️
this book had such strong messages of grief, climate crisis/activism, and identity. i really wanted to love it, and while parts of it were moving and beautifully written, the pacing and structure held it back for me.
📖 plot & pace: the story follows a group of interconnected characters affected by a wildfire in california. this book is told from multiple POVs and in chronological order. while the themes were important, the pace was so slow. i found myself wishing things would move along or that the story would dive deeper instead of circling the same topics of family issues. the plot started to feel repetitive, the chapters were WAY too long and it became harder to stay fully engaged.
👥 characters: the characters were thoughtfully created, and i really appreciated the diversity of perspectives/backgrounds. their emotional journeys were authentic, especially the exploration of grief and guilt. i just wish i could’ve connected with them more. the slower pace & longer chapters made it tough to stay invested in their arcs.
🤩 tropes: multiple POVs, climate fiction, grief/healing
this book had so much potential and emotional weight, but it just didn’t fully click for me. if you enjoy character driven stories and don’t mind a slower pace, this is worth picking up.
3/5 ⭐️
this book had such strong messages of grief, climate crisis/activism, and identity. i really wanted to love it, and while parts of it were moving and beautifully written, the pacing and structure held it back for me.
📖 plot & pace: the story follows a group of interconnected characters affected by a wildfire in california. this book is told from multiple POVs and in chronological order. while the themes were important, the pace was so slow. i found myself wishing things would move along or that the story would dive deeper instead of circling the same topics of family issues. the plot started to feel repetitive, the chapters were WAY too long and it became harder to stay fully engaged.
👥 characters: the characters were thoughtfully created, and i really appreciated the diversity of perspectives/backgrounds. their emotional journeys were authentic, especially the exploration of grief and guilt. i just wish i could’ve connected with them more. the slower pace & longer chapters made it tough to stay invested in their arcs.
🤩 tropes: multiple POVs, climate fiction, grief/healing
this book had so much potential and emotional weight, but it just didn’t fully click for me. if you enjoy character driven stories and don’t mind a slower pace, this is worth picking up.
May 16, 2024
Mediocre. Awash with stereotypes about Berkeley and lots of political posturing masked as dialogue or internal monologues. Action driven. Very little character development. Felt juvenile.
August 21, 2024
"Little fires everywhere" wanna-be.
October 23, 2024
This book reminded me a lot of Little Fires Everywhere and Malibu Rising — both stories about how fires affect communities and the relationships among the main characters. I — to no one’s surprise — loved how Ruiz-Grossman wrote the familial relationships. I only wish there was more focus on siblings, as that is truly my favorite type of relationship to read about.
Beautifully written story, talking about housing insecurity, wildfires, and radicalizing climate refugees. I highly recommend.
Beautifully written story, talking about housing insecurity, wildfires, and radicalizing climate refugees. I highly recommend.
February 23, 2024
A thought-provoking debut told from multiple POVs as a wild fire ravages a small Northern California community. Important conversations about climate change, relationships, homelessness, affordable housing and more. Perfect for fans of books like L.A. Weather by Maria Amparo Escandon and good on audio too.
March 11, 2024
This book follows people who were affected by a fire in California. The author uses the topic of climate change as a way of exposing how people from different socioeconomic backgrounds can experience life differently.
April 11, 2024
love a story with intersecting plot lines and i appreciated how they all came together throughout the story. the character development seemed very stereotypical and predictable though so made the book much less exciting to read
May 8, 2024
Quick read - doesn’t require any brain power. I’m not terribly familiar with the CA coast, and this book didn’t make me want to spend any time there.
February 8, 2024
Wow! I loved this way more than I was anticipating. This story is told from multiple POVs and only gives you a snippet into each character and their life. You don't get all the details, but you do see how every character is connected throughout the story.
I think the chapters and the story are put together way better than they were in Disappearing Earth (I didn't really enjoy that book), but the blurb is accurate in comparing this book to Little Fires Everywhere. The writing and the cast of characters is somewhat similar, but A Fire So Wild still has it's own unique style. While I do wish it had been much longer (I would've loved reading 200+ more pages), I was content with how the story developed and ended.
Overall, I was impressed by this debut, and I definitely recommend reading this one! I'm also looking forward to reading Sarah Ruiz Grossman's next book in the future!
Thank you to Harper for sending an arc for review.
I think the chapters and the story are put together way better than they were in Disappearing Earth (I didn't really enjoy that book), but the blurb is accurate in comparing this book to Little Fires Everywhere. The writing and the cast of characters is somewhat similar, but A Fire So Wild still has it's own unique style. While I do wish it had been much longer (I would've loved reading 200+ more pages), I was content with how the story developed and ended.
Overall, I was impressed by this debut, and I definitely recommend reading this one! I'm also looking forward to reading Sarah Ruiz Grossman's next book in the future!
Thank you to Harper for sending an arc for review.
March 1, 2024
Read this book if you want:
▪A quick read lit-fic
▪Cli-fi that could be set in current day; i.e. not yet 🔥END TIMES🔥.
▪Diverse cast of characters: racially, gender and sexuality, economically
▪Lots of character building
▪Calling out the problematic bs of white liberal non-profit type woman
▪Redemption arc of said woman
I liked this fine, and maybe this is just because I've been reading a lot of Cli-fi recently, but this didn't blow me away. Each chapter I was like, "yup, that tracks," "yup, it do be like that," etc. Didn't feel fresh to me, BUT if you haven't been binging on this genre you may LOVE this.
Thank you to the Brooklyn Public Library for the free ebook. Support your local library ❤️
▪A quick read lit-fic
▪Cli-fi that could be set in current day; i.e. not yet 🔥END TIMES🔥.
▪Diverse cast of characters: racially, gender and sexuality, economically
▪Lots of character building
▪Calling out the problematic bs of white liberal non-profit type woman
▪Redemption arc of said woman
I liked this fine, and maybe this is just because I've been reading a lot of Cli-fi recently, but this didn't blow me away. Each chapter I was like, "yup, that tracks," "yup, it do be like that," etc. Didn't feel fresh to me, BUT if you haven't been binging on this genre you may LOVE this.
Thank you to the Brooklyn Public Library for the free ebook. Support your local library ❤️
May 14, 2024
A unique plot that combines climate fiction and social injustice. Beautiful writing with great character development.
January 19, 2024
Thanks to Harper Collin’s for the ARC! This is a short novel that held a compelling story about the effects of climate change on society. There wasn’t a lot of time spent on character development, yet that did not take away from the story. It was clear the focus was on climate change and other social issues, all of which are relevant in present day.
March 24, 2024
Ruiz Grossman knows her Berkeley and what climate change has wrought there, and the precipice of environmental disaster that we are all teetering upon. She gives a good lesson in the decisions made by individuals and communities that impact each other, their community and the greater world, not only physically but personally as fires rage and waters flood the streets but we keep building. The characters are ultimately so narcissistic they are not relatable, and the ending feels too loose, even with the almost certain doom looming over us all. This is a depressing read that ultimately works as a polemic more than a literary experience - but so relevant.
March 15, 2024
The plot for this book had potential but didn’t quite hit the mark. The story was far too surface level with no real character development and with things moving so quickly and suddenly there was no time to really empathize with the characters and their situations. I ended up skim reading the last 30% or so of this book and don’t feel that I would have gotten much more out of it if I hadn’t. Good idea, disappointing execution.
March 29, 2024
An alright debut. Very readable - only 200 pages, so things come together pretty quickly - but on the whole, it felt very simplistic, idealistic, and a little manufactured, especially the way it approached class issues through the climate lens. Maybe a 2.5?
December 11, 2024
Misled by the synopsis. This turned out to be much sweeter book than I expected. It felt like a lot was going on. There would be the start to a fun idea, but then it fizzled out. Quick read if you need to reach your book goal!!!
January 10, 2024
Okay, but trying too hard to be Little Fires Everywhere. Super similar plot.
April 17, 2024
This was a very interesting book. I wish that there was more in depth analysis of the characters. Idk there just wasn’t rly a whole lot to go off of I guess.
Read
September 17, 2024
Trigger & Content Warnings
Wildfire (theme)
Homelessness
Wildfire (theme)
Homelessness
January 11, 2025
This felt especially relevant given what's happening in LA right now.
Also, the audiobook narrator was A++++
Also, the audiobook narrator was A++++
Displaying 1 - 30 of 290 reviews