Review: Wildfire

Wildfire by Toni Draper
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Finished on July 28, 2021

Favorite Scene/Quote: Love at First Write

This book has mixed reviews and I get why it does. I had a lot of feelings about this book while reading it. Some were good, others not so much. This is Toni Draper’s debut novel and I commend Draper for writing and publishing a book. I also received an ARC of this book from the publisher in a giveaway. So, here is my honest opinion about this book.
    
Mena is a firefighter currently fighting a series of rapidly spreading wildfires. She gets injured while out in the field and is taken to the hospital. There a fellow firefighter contacts Sydney, her ex-girlfriend, to give her the news. The two had been together years ago and something still lingers in them. While reunited, they try and see if a relationship can be salvaged from the wreckage left years ago.

One of the things that worked the best for me was the characters. The characters felt honest and true. They didn’t seem to be too perfect or too messy. They feel into a level that made them feel realistic. I do wish there had been more exploration and time spent with the characters, but I genuinely enjoyed them and wouldn’t mind reading another book with any of these characters.

I had a small problem with the wildfire and mystery angles of this book. It just seemed like both were going to play much bigger parts in the story than they did. Also, sometimes we would cut to the firefighters, minus Mena, and that felt a bit awkward.

This book is based on the rekindling of a relationship between Mena and Sydney. The problem is, that’s also where I found most of my problems with this book to lie. This issue was bugging me so I went back and actually counted pages in order to ensure that the following information is as close to accurate as I could get it. The copy of this book I received is 186 pages long. Approximately 60 of those pages are flashbacks about Mena and Sydney’s relationship. That’s a bit much especially considering only about 15 of those pages actually feature Mena and Sydney together. Outside of the flashbacks, only roughly 30 pages have Mena and Sydney occupying the same place. At times Mena is even unconscious or other parties are present.

My biggest issue with this book is that it lacked connection between the two characters. We are told that the two characters feel deeply about each other, but there seems to be a lack of actual time spent together to help strengthen the relationship. This is especially a problem because the two are broken up at the beginning of the story and together by the end. There seemed like very little pages dedicated to the two of them working out their issues with each other and discussing where things went wrong the first time.

Toni Draper seemingly has the marks of a good author. Her writing is very beautiful, and I found that I was absolutely intrigued in the story. There just seems to be things missing in this story. If there had been an extra 50 or 100 pages dedicated to Mena and Sydney interacting, I think this book could have been wonderful.

This is a decent book to pass the time. It has some nice writing and I genuinely loved all the characters, I think Isa might be a personal favorite of mine. The problem is it felt like there was very little interaction between the two main characters and that led to the conclusion of the book not feeling earned.