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If We Caught Fire
Set in St. John's, If We Caught Fire explores the complexities of life in a blended family. When her mother decides to remarry, Edie's calm and orderly life is knocked off kilter. The groom's son, Harlow, is a joyful adventurer who shows up for the wedding and quickly recruits Edie as his sidekick. Just when she thinks she's figured him out, Harlow reveals a depth and darkness she didn't see coming. Edie and Harlow--and their new unwieldy family--do an elaborate dance all summer, trying to discover what they are to one another. By Labour Day, they've created connections, tested boundaries, and found they've come together and apart in unexpected ways. Edie and Harlow, the main characters in A Luxury of Stars, navigate the world in disguise, creating personas that they believe hide their pain and vulnerability. The characters struggle to define themselves and others, to make sense of how they feel and act, to understand what they value and need. As they try to form connections with one another, they realize that labels can both create clarity and impose limits. Their families have been shaken by death, trauma, addiction, secrecy, and infidelity, which leaves them all feeling unsteady as they try to form a new blended family.
247 pages, Paperback
Published April 30, 2023
1 person is currently reading
29 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 22, 2024
3.5⭐️ rounded up
Loved reading about characters set in my hometown… it was easy to picture the settings, the streets, the bars, the random places. The plot was good and fairly unpredictable.
However, the ending was strangely abrupt and unexpected. I really didn’t love the writing style; her lack of use of quotation marks for dialogue was frustrating, and at times, slightly hard to follow.
Overall, though, a good read.
Loved reading about characters set in my hometown… it was easy to picture the settings, the streets, the bars, the random places. The plot was good and fairly unpredictable.
However, the ending was strangely abrupt and unexpected. I really didn’t love the writing style; her lack of use of quotation marks for dialogue was frustrating, and at times, slightly hard to follow.
Overall, though, a good read.
May 8, 2024
Finding fiction that is written about one’s hometown is always a bit of a gamble. If the narrative does not follow one’s own lived experience, the reader is likely to cry foul and declare the tale a creative misdemeanor. Thankfully, Beth Ryan’s IF WE CAUGHT FIRE does not suffer from this problem, mostly because Ryan’s skill as a writer is up to the task, but also because Ryan knows the city of St. John’s, Newfoundland, as intimately as a lover.
IF WE CAUGHT FIRE is, as other reviewers have said, a ‘slow burn’, but what a burn it is. From main character Edie’s unassuming origins as a plump child in a thin world that yearns to remake her, to her fully felt, hard-won adulthood, she shines. Always a little out of step with the current lifestyle trends, she is firmly an individual, a woman who might not know exactly what she wants but who gets there in the end.
Supporting characters are complex and multifaceted, most notably Max, Edie’s young half-brother, who sees the world with a sagacity and prescience quite beyond his years. The older adults in Edie’s life – her feckless father, Mike, and his new wife Trina (mother of the unwanted pseudo-sister Melissa, she of the irritating giggle and frequently tossed tresses) figure largely, but it’s Edie’s mother who arguably leaves the strongest impression. Finally Harlow, the Loki-like trickster figure who becomes Edie’s somewhat significant other, is devastatingly portrayed.
Despite a conclusion that appears with an unexpected abruptness, IF WE CAUGHT FIRE is a skilled and beautiful portrayal of characters who are so very like the people we might know. And, like these familiar denizens of our own lives, they continue to haunt the mind of the reader, long after the final page is turned.
IF WE CAUGHT FIRE is, as other reviewers have said, a ‘slow burn’, but what a burn it is. From main character Edie’s unassuming origins as a plump child in a thin world that yearns to remake her, to her fully felt, hard-won adulthood, she shines. Always a little out of step with the current lifestyle trends, she is firmly an individual, a woman who might not know exactly what she wants but who gets there in the end.
Supporting characters are complex and multifaceted, most notably Max, Edie’s young half-brother, who sees the world with a sagacity and prescience quite beyond his years. The older adults in Edie’s life – her feckless father, Mike, and his new wife Trina (mother of the unwanted pseudo-sister Melissa, she of the irritating giggle and frequently tossed tresses) figure largely, but it’s Edie’s mother who arguably leaves the strongest impression. Finally Harlow, the Loki-like trickster figure who becomes Edie’s somewhat significant other, is devastatingly portrayed.
Despite a conclusion that appears with an unexpected abruptness, IF WE CAUGHT FIRE is a skilled and beautiful portrayal of characters who are so very like the people we might know. And, like these familiar denizens of our own lives, they continue to haunt the mind of the reader, long after the final page is turned.
October 23, 2023
Each of us navigates the world in a certain manner...the protagonists in this story navigate through live in very different ways and their intersection will reveal how trauma can impact and manifest diverse responses.
Once I started reading this book and realized I was in for a story that would capture me. And capture me it did....
August 19, 2023
This is extremely well-crafted and engaging. The characters are all 3 dimensional and memorable. This novel is a great follow to her first book, "What is Invisible." I really couldn't put it down.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews