Review: Scorched

SCORCHED
Mari Mancusi
Paranormal Young Adult
352 pages
Sourcebooks Fire
Available September 3rd
Source: BEA

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Trinity
Don’t leave me here... It starts with a whisper. At first Trinity thinks she’s going crazy. It wouldn’t be a big surprise—her grandpa firmly believes there’s a genuine dragon egg in their dusty little West Texas town. But this voice is real, and it’s begging for her protection. Even if no one else can hear it...

Connor
He’s come from a future scorched by dragonfire. His mission: Find the girl. Destroy the egg. Save the world.

Caleb
He’s everything his twin brother Connor hates: cocky, undisciplined, and obsessed with saving dragons.

Trinity has no idea which brother to believe. All she has to go by is the voice in her head—a dragon that won’t be tamed.

MY THOUGHTS
Scorched is a story that has our undivided attention from the beginning thanks its dragon-focused premise, dragons being a mythological creature that hasn’t quite yet taken the young adult fiction market by storm. As a result, an air of mystery is created for us readers before we even get to the first page, wondering how Ms. Mancusi is going to bring her beasts to life. Part of the appeal of this story aside from the creatures themselves is that Trinity’s world is in fact ours, no acclimation period necessary as we are instantly at home and comfortable with our surroundings, and we simply get to watch, riveted, as something out of myth and legend finds a new home and begins to thread together a story that doesn’t begin with “once upon a time”.

Trinity is a young women we have a few concerns about after reading the synopsis, worrying and questioning whether or not she’s going to be one of those girls who waffles between two boys, dragging us deeper into her romantic drama when what we want most is to learn about her role in the birth of a dragon and the subsequent end of the world. Luckily for us, Trinity has a good head on her shoulders, though she can be a bit quick at times to dismiss Connor when he tries to explain how he came to be in her time, but honestly, it would be far stranger if she simply accepted what he told her at face value and then jumped in with both feet, especially given her precarious family situation and difficult history.

It doesn’t take her long to be persuaded however, and when she is she proves again and again that in her story there’s no tower in which she idly waits for someone to arrive and set her world to turning, instead she beats all the men in her life to the punch, kicking a new life into gear and fighting tooth and nail to protect what’s most important to her. While she does have romantic moments with both brothers at different points in the story, it makes sense in the context of this tale specifically, with each brother on opposite sides of the battle for the life of Trinity’s dragon and each approaching her with very plausible and equally horrifying versions of the future if she doesn’t listen to their advice. There’s none of the game playing that so often accompanies a love triangle, and there’s no pitting one brother against the other, in fact there’s no declaration of love (or anything even remotely close) of any kind, removing any irritation we might feel at the setup before it can really take root.

There’s certainly potential for the situation between Trinity, Caleb and Connor to turn into a true triangle in future books, but in this first installment the relationships between the three of them are handled beautifully, our allegiance to each brother shifting back and forth along with Trinity’s as more and more about both of them is revealed. While the romantic element is certainly present, it remains secondary to the dragons and the role they are to play in the future from which both Caleb and Connor hail, and we find ourselves easily swept up in trying to figure out if it will be life or death that saves the world, all the while knowing the decision is not quite as black and white as it seems.

Rating: 4/5
 

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This book was given to me at BEA free of charge by the publisher for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.