BURN DOWN, RISE UP By Vincent Tirado

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

Burn Down, Rise Up by Vincent Tirado
Published by Sourcebooks Fire on 5/3/22
Genres: Horror & Ghost Stories, LGBT, Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 308
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
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For over a year, the Bronx has been plagued by sudden disappearances that no one can explain. Sixteen-year-old Raquel does her best to ignore it. After all, the police only look for the white kids. But when her crush Charlize's cousin goes missing, Raquel starts to pay attention—especially when her own mom comes down with a mysterious illness that seems linked to the disappearances.

Raquel and Charlize team up to investigate, but they soon discover that everything is tied to a terrifying urban legend called the Echo Game. The game is rumored to trap people in a sinister world underneath the city, and the rules are based on a particularly dark chapter in New York's past. And if the friends want to save their home and everyone they love, they will have to play the game and destroy the evil at its heart—or die trying.

Short and Sweet Review

For the past year teens have been disappearing in the Bronx and no one has an answer about what’s happening. Raquel usually ignores these things but when one of the disappearances hits close to home Raquel knows she needs to help. When Charlize, Raquels crush’s cousin goes missing and Raquels mom contracts a mysteries illness, the girls team up to investigate what’s going on in the Bronx.

The book starts off with us seeing Cisco, Charlize’s cousin going a little crazy and he asks Charlize for help but eventually he ends up going missing. Raquels mom was in close contact with Cisco and ends up having to be quarantined and put in a medical induced coma. The girls don’t really know what’s going on but they find out that Cisco was playing a game called the echo. Essentially the Echo is played at like 3 in the morning and there’s a set of rules and if you break one of those rules you’re in trouble.

This book was so good, it was creepy and at some points I really did regret reading it at night. The echo was interesting because it takes the people who play to a dark chapter in their city’s past and in this case it took Raquel and her friends to the period of the Bronx burnings. I liked Raquel even though this whole situation was scary, she faced it head on twice! If it were me I would have no parts of playing the echo game. This group of friends were resourceful and had each others backs which I appreciated because everyone needs a good support system and Raquel had that. There was some good history in this book, I’ve never heard of the Bronx burnings before reading this book.

Burn Down, Rise Up will keep you up at night, and its a good kind of spooky that’ll have you flipping pages until you find out what’s really happening down in the echo and whether our protagonist can survive this game!