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Burning Down the House: A novel
“It begins with a child . . .” So opens Jane Mendelsohn’s powerful, riveting new novel. A classic family tale colliding with the twenty-first century, Burning Down the House tells the story of two girls. Neva, from the mountains of Russia, was sold into the sex trade at the age of ten; Poppy is the adopted daughter of Steve, the patriarch of a successful New York real estate clan, the Zanes. She is his sister’s orphaned child. One of these young women will unwittingly help bring down this grand household with the inexorability of Greek tragedy, and the other will summon everything she’s learned and all her strength to try to save its members from themselves.
In cinematic, dazzlingly described scenes, we enter the lavish universe of the Zane family, from a wedding in an English manor house to the trans-global world of luxury hotels and restaurants—from New York to Rome, Istanbul to Laos. As we meet them all—Steve’s second wife, his children from his first marriage, the twins from the second, their friends and household staff—we enter with visceral immediacy an emotional world filled with a dynamic family’s loves, jealousies, and yearnings. In lush, exact prose, Mendelsohn transforms their private stories into a panoramic drama about a family’s struggles to face the challenges of internal rivalry, a tragic love, and a shifting empire. Set against the backdrop of financial crisis, globalization, and human trafficking, the novel finds inextricable connections between the personal and the political.
Dramatic, compassionate, and psychologically complex, Burning Down the House is both wrenching and unputdownable, an unforgettable portrayal of a single family caught up in the earthquake that is our contemporary world.
From the Hardcover edition.
In cinematic, dazzlingly described scenes, we enter the lavish universe of the Zane family, from a wedding in an English manor house to the trans-global world of luxury hotels and restaurants—from New York to Rome, Istanbul to Laos. As we meet them all—Steve’s second wife, his children from his first marriage, the twins from the second, their friends and household staff—we enter with visceral immediacy an emotional world filled with a dynamic family’s loves, jealousies, and yearnings. In lush, exact prose, Mendelsohn transforms their private stories into a panoramic drama about a family’s struggles to face the challenges of internal rivalry, a tragic love, and a shifting empire. Set against the backdrop of financial crisis, globalization, and human trafficking, the novel finds inextricable connections between the personal and the political.
Dramatic, compassionate, and psychologically complex, Burning Down the House is both wrenching and unputdownable, an unforgettable portrayal of a single family caught up in the earthquake that is our contemporary world.
From the Hardcover edition.
279 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 15, 2016
32 people are currently reading
934 people want to read
About the author
Jane Mendelsohn
6 books62 followersJane Mendelsohn was born and raised in New York City. She is a graduate of Yale.
She is the author of three novels: the best-selling I Was Amelia Earhart, shortlisted for the Orange Prize, and Innocence, and American Music. Published to wide acclaim by Knopf in 2010, American Music is now out in paperback from Vintage.
She is the author of three novels: the best-selling I Was Amelia Earhart, shortlisted for the Orange Prize, and Innocence, and American Music. Published to wide acclaim by Knopf in 2010, American Music is now out in paperback from Vintage.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
March 17, 2016
I'll admit it. I chose this book because of its cover. That beautiful photo of the twin towers of the San Remo gleaming in the sun with the lush foliage of Central Park in front of it. I couldn't resist. Then the title: "Burning Down the House" - I loved that, too. The book, itself, unfortunately... Well, I can't remember the last time I met a cast of more unappealing, unlikable characters. I got about halfway through the book, and realized I could not have cared less what happened to any of them. I still don't care.
February 19, 2016
I started out loving this book, but halfway through it decided I really disliked it very much. Didn't like the characters, the writing; the plot and scenes were totally disjointed and I almost didn't finish it, since I never finish a book that I don't like. But since I was so far into it, decided to see what happened. Wasn't really worth it; the best part was the epilogue, which I should have gone directly to, and even the epilogue was not totally satisfying. The description of the book sounded so good, but the execution of the whole package was not for me.
Thanks to Edelweiss and Knopf for the digital review copy!
Thanks to Edelweiss and Knopf for the digital review copy!
March 1, 2016
Here is how to tell if you liked a book or not, if you're unsure. When you see there is an epilogue, ask yourself: what is my initial instinct? Sometimes you'll say, Wow, yes! I'm going to savior this. I hope it goes on forever and ever. And other times you'll say, Holy shit, do I really have to KEEP READING I thought I was done. The epilogue of Burning Down the House made me do the second one.
So I was un-looking forward to reading the epilogue, the author's last chance to tell you how cute and clever they are, but I did it, and it was just as bad as I thought it'd be. Thank goodness epilogues are short. (This time.) From the epilogue:
Felix found music and a sense of purpose. He learned how to make guitars. He painstakingly bent and molded the wood. He began composing electronic symphonies. He chose a new name for himself: Phoenix. He wrote a wildly ambitious orchestral piece and dedicated it to his .
And what is it about some bad books that give you hope that the book will get better? The ones that are able to trick you into continuing to read? Why did I finish this? I kept thinking that it was about to get good and it never did.
I didn't care about any of the characters. I felt nothing for them. I think I am tired of reading about rich people and their dumb problems.
I wasn't fond of the writing style, either. Lots and lots of going on and going on, in a bland, unclever way that left zero impact.
After what you've told me I need to take a very long, very hot shower, says Alix on page 244. My feelings exactly, after reading this ick.
So I was un-looking forward to reading the epilogue, the author's last chance to tell you how cute and clever they are, but I did it, and it was just as bad as I thought it'd be. Thank goodness epilogues are short. (This time.) From the epilogue:
Felix found music and a sense of purpose. He learned how to make guitars. He painstakingly bent and molded the wood. He began composing electronic symphonies. He chose a new name for himself: Phoenix. He wrote a wildly ambitious orchestral piece and dedicated it to his .
And what is it about some bad books that give you hope that the book will get better? The ones that are able to trick you into continuing to read? Why did I finish this? I kept thinking that it was about to get good and it never did.
I didn't care about any of the characters. I felt nothing for them. I think I am tired of reading about rich people and their dumb problems.
I wasn't fond of the writing style, either. Lots and lots of going on and going on, in a bland, unclever way that left zero impact.
After what you've told me I need to take a very long, very hot shower, says Alix on page 244. My feelings exactly, after reading this ick.
March 31, 2016
I dutifully plugged along until I got to chapter 18, and came to a plot "twist" that was so banal and clichéd that I actually gasped out loud. So ordinariness in fiction is not that unusual (alas), but this book seems to be positioned as above it all, some kind of masterpiece portrayal of the human condition. Don't think so. The writing is stilted and somehow simultaneously breathless and distant from its subject. The author hasn't given us even a wink of a reason why we should care about these spoiled, boring people...but we've got plenty of reasons not to. I suppose that's all very stylish, but it's to the point of blandness, and since it's just so freaking hard to care about any of these people anyway, the writing eventually interferes with whatever story there is here.
Then there's this: "The love they have is an attempt to express the inexpressible. There is no word for what they have, who they become when they are together. It is theirs and they belong to it."
I kid you not.
My eyeballs are bleeding.
Then there's this: "The love they have is an attempt to express the inexpressible. There is no word for what they have, who they become when they are together. It is theirs and they belong to it."
I kid you not.
My eyeballs are bleeding.
July 16, 2016
not really sure how to feel about this book. ny times says its "high-strung and histrionic," which I agree to some extent, but also I loved the characters, the prose, the absence of punctuation. it deals with some heavy and unexpected topics, including incest, rape, murder and human trafficking, some of which seem out of place, some just strange.
3 stars because the family dynamic was mysteriously fantastic, Felix inspires me to empathize with young geniuses, and "the worst, she thinks, is when you go crazy but you are completely aware of what has happened." (154)
3 stars because the family dynamic was mysteriously fantastic, Felix inspires me to empathize with young geniuses, and "the worst, she thinks, is when you go crazy but you are completely aware of what has happened." (154)
April 1, 2016
I give up on this piece of crap book about rich and pretentious imbeciles. I don't give two fucks what happens to any of them and at 55 pages into this, I am throwing in the towel. Seriously, don't waste your time.
August 2, 2020
I came very close to rating this 1-star. I felt like I was reading a book written by a robot. On top of that, the author didn’t use quotation marks during dialogues. I found that strange and distracting. I decided on the 2-star rating only because Mendelssohn did a decent job of weaving all the antics of this very dysfunctional, extended family’s lives together. But I sure wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone.
April 5, 2016
2.5 stars.
Thoughts:
I know some writers think it's unique to drop quotation marks from around the dialogue, and she is one of them. In the case of a book like this, where the dialogue varies little from the character's internal monologue, it is a disaster for the reader. I had to back up multiple times to see if I was reading the inner thoughts or the spoken words of the characters because it makes a big difference in the context of the discussions. I think the book probably fell from a 3.5 star to a 2.5 star just from that unnecessary decision to be "quirky" by the author.
Every character here lacks humanity, and the reader is left with no one to invest emotionally. The most interesting character, Neva, we know nothing about beyond the most cursory of information. She's like a plaster statue for 85% of the novel waiting around to get called in to help the plot move forward.
It feels I heard a very long story about a group of people I do not know and have no reason to care. I also didn't care much what happens to Poppy either because she throws herself down a well over and over. If this book were food, it would be an elaborately plated 6-course meal that contained iceberg lettuce with no dressing, steamed fish with no seasoning, and vanilla ice milk for dessert.
Thoughts:
I know some writers think it's unique to drop quotation marks from around the dialogue, and she is one of them. In the case of a book like this, where the dialogue varies little from the character's internal monologue, it is a disaster for the reader. I had to back up multiple times to see if I was reading the inner thoughts or the spoken words of the characters because it makes a big difference in the context of the discussions. I think the book probably fell from a 3.5 star to a 2.5 star just from that unnecessary decision to be "quirky" by the author.
Every character here lacks humanity, and the reader is left with no one to invest emotionally. The most interesting character, Neva, we know nothing about beyond the most cursory of information. She's like a plaster statue for 85% of the novel waiting around to get called in to help the plot move forward.
It feels I heard a very long story about a group of people I do not know and have no reason to care. I also didn't care much what happens to Poppy either because she throws herself down a well over and over. If this book were food, it would be an elaborately plated 6-course meal that contained iceberg lettuce with no dressing, steamed fish with no seasoning, and vanilla ice milk for dessert.
March 20, 2017
The title and the cover are the best things about this book. It is so overblown and over written that it is almost impenetrable. While reading this, you can almost feel Mendelsohn struggling to write the "Great American Novel". Next time she shouldn't try so hard and maybe she will produce something readable.
August 7, 2017
I'm still annoyed that I read this whole book. Admittedly, I skipped many sentences because there was so many words to express so little thought. I ran out of patience with Mendelsohn's attempt to bring these storylines together and was really disappointed at the twist towards the end. I felt like she trivialized and exploited a really serious issue.
March 25, 2016
"IDK what to write about. I'm fairly wealthy and live in New York, so there's that. I want to write about a cliche but I don't want to write 18 books. Okay one book about rich New Yorkers (ooh let's make them sad too) with at least eighteen cliches." -J.M.
April 19, 2016
Entirely gripping.
March 19, 2016
This review was originally posted on [www.125pages.com]
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Not at all for me. Burning Down the House was a study of a pretentious, narcissistic and pretty much just awful family. I was expecting a moving drama in the style of
The Color of Our Sky
, but instead got a different version of the spoiled group in
Everybody Rise
. For example this - "...swept past like some well-appointed band of itinerant jugglers or magicians, circus performers impersonating aristocrats. An understatedly luxurious scarf of ostrich feathers trailed behind Poppy, a plume of smoke from her neck." And this - "But his narcissism is a part of him that he has not yet had to examine or tackle or renounce and so in his personal life he is very often destructive. He is not, at least, as destructive as some people. He knows that, takes some remote comfort in it. " Horrible people being horrible to each other was the entire theme of the book.
There was one character that I enjoyed in the beginning and again in the end, Neva, the Russian nanny was a force and if her story was more prominent, or the other characters more like her, Burning Down the House could have been amazing. Instead I read a book about a family destined to implode while they treated themselves and others as expendable. I also did not really get the thriller aspect. Yes, there were things that happened, and an issue to solve, but thriller status it did not reach. The descriptions also made me frustrated. Sentences such as "Steve’s face was blank. A blinding blankness like an overcast sky on a March day in the Northeast when there is no sun and no birds and a dead stillness that crushes all hope." and "Like a great ponderous mastodon he lumbered down the hallway toward the vast kitchen..." abounded. I get it, you have a thesaurus, but most of the time simple is much more effective.
Jane Mendelsohn can write and she did have small moments and phrases sprinkled throughout that kept me reading, hoping for more. I think others may love this style, but it is just not for me. I want an honest story that is clean and crisp and characters I can feel with. Burning Down the House was not that at all. Stripped down and without all of the over description I think I would have loved this, but I just could not get past the characters to meld with the story.
Favorite lines - Poppy is self-destructive. The last thing she attempts to do is to truly hurt anyone other than herself. As she walks away Ian sees her, for an instant, in all her fierce, stunningly pretty, self-destructive glory. He sees her and for a brief flickering moment comprehends her in a way that he does not comprehend himself.
Biggest cliché - I am very wealthy, so no harm shall come to me.
Have you read Burning Down the House, or added it to your TBR?
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Not at all for me. Burning Down the House was a study of a pretentious, narcissistic and pretty much just awful family. I was expecting a moving drama in the style of
The Color of Our Sky
, but instead got a different version of the spoiled group in
Everybody Rise
. For example this - "...swept past like some well-appointed band of itinerant jugglers or magicians, circus performers impersonating aristocrats. An understatedly luxurious scarf of ostrich feathers trailed behind Poppy, a plume of smoke from her neck." And this - "But his narcissism is a part of him that he has not yet had to examine or tackle or renounce and so in his personal life he is very often destructive. He is not, at least, as destructive as some people. He knows that, takes some remote comfort in it. " Horrible people being horrible to each other was the entire theme of the book.There was one character that I enjoyed in the beginning and again in the end, Neva, the Russian nanny was a force and if her story was more prominent, or the other characters more like her, Burning Down the House could have been amazing. Instead I read a book about a family destined to implode while they treated themselves and others as expendable. I also did not really get the thriller aspect. Yes, there were things that happened, and an issue to solve, but thriller status it did not reach. The descriptions also made me frustrated. Sentences such as "Steve’s face was blank. A blinding blankness like an overcast sky on a March day in the Northeast when there is no sun and no birds and a dead stillness that crushes all hope." and "Like a great ponderous mastodon he lumbered down the hallway toward the vast kitchen..." abounded. I get it, you have a thesaurus, but most of the time simple is much more effective.
Jane Mendelsohn can write and she did have small moments and phrases sprinkled throughout that kept me reading, hoping for more. I think others may love this style, but it is just not for me. I want an honest story that is clean and crisp and characters I can feel with. Burning Down the House was not that at all. Stripped down and without all of the over description I think I would have loved this, but I just could not get past the characters to meld with the story.
Favorite lines - Poppy is self-destructive. The last thing she attempts to do is to truly hurt anyone other than herself. As she walks away Ian sees her, for an instant, in all her fierce, stunningly pretty, self-destructive glory. He sees her and for a brief flickering moment comprehends her in a way that he does not comprehend himself.
Biggest cliché - I am very wealthy, so no harm shall come to me.
Have you read Burning Down the House, or added it to your TBR?
June 23, 2019
Though quite convinced there is a greater metaphor that I am missing, I found the book flowing and beautiful. I thought the author truly wrote in such a way that I felt for the two girls and wanted more for them. I still have yet to fully understand the meaning, but I am excited to see what others have to say.
August 1, 2024
Favorite author ever. I know a lot of people hated this book but since I read Innocence when I was 18 I’ve been obsessed. I have a 1st edition signed copy of that one. In a lot of ways that one spoke to me then. This one not so much my thing but I love poetic prose. I do understand where people are coming from but I don’t think it was worthy of the absolute thrashing it got here.
May 11, 2016
It starts with a lot of promise but melts into incoherent, literary-aspiring goo. Plot is all over the place and the characters aren’t interesting enough to carry it.
July 13, 2022
I truly did not like this book at all. If the lack of quotation marks didn't put me over the edge, the incest did.
August 3, 2022
Very disappointing. I don't think the story itself was so bad but I absolutely hated the writing style. It was tedious and boring. I won't read this author again.
April 2, 2023
Potential lost in prose
I was really excited to read this after loving Mendelsohn’s first novel. I see a lot of similarities in the writing style, sort of effusive and sometimes meandering, but that seemed appropriate to I Was Amelia Earhart. In this novel, it had the effect of making the book at times confusing and distant. She has a gift for beautiful, unusual descriptors, but seems to use that gift with a sort of reckless abandon that gets you lost in a sentence and sometimes unable to determine the point. I saw some reviews that said the readers couldn’t care about the characters. I did not find that true for me. I finished the book wanting to continue the journey with Felix, Neva and Poppy. It felt like the author got a better footing towards the end, but the book never reached its potential.
I was really excited to read this after loving Mendelsohn’s first novel. I see a lot of similarities in the writing style, sort of effusive and sometimes meandering, but that seemed appropriate to I Was Amelia Earhart. In this novel, it had the effect of making the book at times confusing and distant. She has a gift for beautiful, unusual descriptors, but seems to use that gift with a sort of reckless abandon that gets you lost in a sentence and sometimes unable to determine the point. I saw some reviews that said the readers couldn’t care about the characters. I did not find that true for me. I finished the book wanting to continue the journey with Felix, Neva and Poppy. It felt like the author got a better footing towards the end, but the book never reached its potential.
Read
June 21, 2020Ce roman m'a plu. De prime abord, la famille Zane n'est pas très sympathique. Cela commence avec Jonathan qui a trompé sa fiancée avec la nounou de ses demi-frères, et qui a cessé seulement parce que celle-ci a été congédiée. Ensuite, il y a Alex, la soeur de Jonathan, qui souffre d'un mal être perpétuel, et semble s'y complaire. En général, si je n'apprécie pas les personnages principaux, j'ai du mal à aimer le livre. Ici, cela n'a pas été ainsi, car l'auteur donne le ton dès le début, et on voit qu'elle-même n'apprécie pas beaucoup Jonathan. Quant à Alex, j'ai oscillé entre compassion et envie de la secouer.[...]Lire la suite sur:
February 20, 2024
This book had an interesting format, as in, there wasn't a single quotation mark in the entire work. That's definitely what appealed me to read it, even if the plot was a bit all over the place. The book very much goes full circle with the start and the end, with the character Nova, which I thought was neat. Other than that though, there were some themes in this novel that were a little difficult to digest and I couldn't find myself enjoying those parts.
September 12, 2025
The ending was fantastic. Wrapped so perfectly together.
An eye opening book on sex trafficking and more. I’m thankful for all I have learned.
I’ve gotten to know this family and with all their flaws and imperfect love it still is comforting knowing that there is still some love. Even though they have neglected the baby Poppy.
So proud of the character Neva.
Can’t believe Jonathan did the unspeakable thing though.
Love love this author’s work.
An eye opening book on sex trafficking and more. I’m thankful for all I have learned.
I’ve gotten to know this family and with all their flaws and imperfect love it still is comforting knowing that there is still some love. Even though they have neglected the baby Poppy.
So proud of the character Neva.
Can’t believe Jonathan did the unspeakable thing though.
Love love this author’s work.
January 12, 2025
Things I liked: bad ass character (Neva) who was the ultimate heroine, fast paced read because it jumped between multiple perspectives, a tycoon character who actually ended up being a good guy
Things I didn’t like: most of the characters are terrible and the twist in the middle of the book is disturbing
Things I didn’t like: most of the characters are terrible and the twist in the middle of the book is disturbing
February 28, 2020
Never actually got past the first chapter. Way too exploitative (or more accurately I don’t need to read descriptions of such exploitation in this day and age).
Life is depressing enough with trump in power.
Life is depressing enough with trump in power.
July 28, 2018
Boring, I finally gave up...
January 27, 2019
I found the writing overwrought and the plot was ridiculous.
November 18, 2020
My review is based on the first 5 pages as that was all I could get through. Dryer than stale bread and I could not get past the fact that the author didn’t use quotations.
December 31, 2020
beautiful language describing miserable rich people who experience improbable events.
February 8, 2021
Sometime since I listened to this book, but I enjoyed it. Interesting characters, and the sense of human trafficking make it well worth reading.
October 21, 2021
Gut Instinct Rating: 2
Characters: 3
Believability: 2
Uniqueness: 5
Writing Style: 2
Excitement Factor: 1
Story Line: 3
Title Relevance: 5
Artwork Relevance: 1
Overall: 2.67🏳️🌈
Characters: 3
Believability: 2
Uniqueness: 5
Writing Style: 2
Excitement Factor: 1
Story Line: 3
Title Relevance: 5
Artwork Relevance: 1
Overall: 2.67🏳️🌈
Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews