A Catalog of Burnt Objects

Youngdahl (As Many Nows as I Can Get), moved by the 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed her Paradise, Calif., hometown, delivers a wrenching story of resilience and healing. Seventeen-year-old Caprice Alexander is at a crossroads: she simultaneously loves her Sierra, Calif., town and can’t wait to graduate and leave for college. Things at home grow tense when her unpredictable older brother, Beckett, returns following months spent in a rehabilitation center for an alcohol dependency. Cappy resents Beckett and feels that his drinking tore their family apart. She distracts herself by diving into her personal project developing an app, hoping to use it to kick-start a career in tech. Then tragedy strikes when a wildfire devastates her town. Chapter titles serve as a countdown to the climactic event, and periodic interstitials narrated by various characters provide insight to happenings before, during, and after the fire. Cappy’s first-person POV reflects her analytical mind, while parallel recovery journeys—following Beckett post-rehab and the citizens of Sierra post-fire—center family, friends, and community in this lengthy and visceral novel. The Alexanders are white. Ages 12–up. (Mar.)

Correction: The text of this review has been updated for clarity.