haven’t stopped thinking about this since i read it 4 months ago
i love how tender and heartfelt the writing is
i love thé realistic story with the aspect of the fire kids being just a slightly off take from reality ( )

What a weird, quaint little book ( )

Come for the gimmick, stay for one touching, and one puzzling, relationship. The gimmick of course is the children who periodically burst into flame, which doesn't do them any harm. The story doesn't try to explain how this could be, making it magical realism instead of science fiction. Also making it explainable as a mere metaphor for how children can be difficult. What, children can be difficult? It's true!

The puzzling relationship is between Madison, the two children's step-mother, and Lillian, her roommate for half a year of ninth grade at an elite boarding school. Madison is beautiful and was raised to be at home with power and wealth, and is now married to the kids' father, an important Senator, but has trouble forming relationships and has no real friends. Except Lillian? Lillian was a scholarship kid at the school before being expelled, taking the fall for Madison's actions after Madison's arrogant father wrote Lillian's uncaring mother a large check, sending Lillian back to a life of poor schools and dead end jobs. This relationship has all sorts of subtexts - a massive and uncomfortable power imbalance, hidden and repressed sexuality, dysfunctional families, thwarted ambitions.

The touching relationship is between these kids and Lillian. The children's mother, a paranoid recluse, has killed herself and tried to kill them as well. Their father, the Senator, has no feeling for them and wants them to be hidden away. They catch on fire. Safe to say, they've got some issues. Madison asks Lillian to leave behind her barely functional life to care for them in a guesthouse on their massive estate. It shouldn't work out but it does, and the kids and Lillian find love and redemption in each other. And it's actually written pretty well.

There's less done with the flammable aspect of the children than I was expecting, so I got a different book than I thought I was about to read, but it's an entertaining and solid read. ( )

You can’t beat a serendipitous 5 star charity shop purchase from an author you’ve never heard of. (The fact it was only published last year and in pristine condition adding to its appeal) Despite this, I ummed and ahhed a little before buying it, yet buy it I did and furthermore started reading it straight away - swiftly finding out I had struck the aforementioned gold ( )

This book was a sometimes darkly funny, sometimes horrifying, quirky, and sweet story about misfits, young and old, based on a strange premise: children with some genetic condition that causes them to combust when agitated, and even at will as they grow older. Stranger still is the fact they themselves are not hurt by the flames emanating from them, but the flames nevertheless ignite objects or burn people they touch. Ten-year-old twins Bessie and Roland Roberts have plenty of reason to be agitated: When they were five, they and their mother were discarded by their father, Senator Roberts, when he found a new wife, Madison - who worked miracles on his campaign. Then after their mother's death, the Senator, who is on a short list to be the next Secretary of State, needs to take them back and wants to keep them out of the spotlight so they don't damage his prospects. Madison decides to hire a governess - her best friend from boarding school, Lillian, who had taken the fall for Madison, vis-a-vis a handsome payoff to her mother, and gotten expelled yet remained loyal via correspondence in the years since. The Senator is a complete asshole; Madison is somewhat more redemptive; and Lillian really shines in the end. I found Lillian's character a little unbelievable - she seemed more male than female - but nevertheless the story was entertaining. ( )