I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

A terrible accident. A horrible loss. A regrettable tragedy. That's all anyone in Fenix can talk about when a fire consumes the local high school, taking the life of a student. The town mourns, except who really knew—let alone cared about—Eden when she was alive? And why was she in the building that night?

Five teens each hold a piece of the truth about what happened. They also have their own secrets, secrets they will fight to protect with the same fury as the blaze that killed Eden. But silence is meant to be broken, and this story can't be extinguished…

Short and Sweet Review

The local high school in Fenix was just burned down and someone died, some people in Fenix are grieving and others not so much. Eden died in the fire but why was she even there that night? Only five people know what really happened and each one holds a different piece of the puzzle.

After We Burned, introduces us to different characters we have Eden whose POV is in the past and then we have Payton, Theo, and Kelsey and we see what the aftermath is. Eden wasn’t very well known and she was closest to Payton and Theo and even had plans to leave town so why she was in the school that night is the biggest mystery which is pieced together during the book. We have Payton who was also in the school but for a different reason entirely. Payton is interesting I think she has some guilt about Eden being there because of the fire and she decides to make it her mission to expose what really went down that night and why everyone was there. I felt for Payton she wants to do the right thing but she also has a hard home life and her dad is abusive and she never knows what kind of mood he’ll be in. Theo was also friends with Eden but he doesn’t have the whole picture so when Eden wants to team up with him he’s all in. Theo is apart of the school newspaper so he’s ready to expose whatever went down. Kelsey is one of the more popular students but she’s been hiding a big secret that’s been eating away at her.

Each character brought something different to the book, we had Payton and Theo ready to expose things that some people are trying to brush under the rug, Kelsey was trying to deal with things in her own way but it backfired. There’s a lot of heavy topics covered in this book like abuse and sexual assault. I feel like there’s a lot of trauma in this book and we see it explored through each character and how they’ve been coping. I thought the revelation of what happened and what led to it was good. The chapters in this book are short and the pacing was good and kept me engaged the whole time.

Overall, this is a heavy book but I did enjoy how everything was portrayed and how things played out. I would recommend this book but also give a warning about the content.