Review: Fire & Flood by Victoria Scott

Title: Fire & Flood

Series: Fire & Flood 2 

Author: Victoria Scott

Pages: 320

Published: 02.25.14

Acquired: Arc from Scholastic 

Goodreads Rating: 4.03

My Rating: 3.5

Goodreads

Amazon

 Goodreads Synopsis:

A modern day thrill ride, where a teen girl and her animal companion must participate in a breathtaking race to save her brother's life—and her own. 

Tella Holloway is losing it. Her brother is sick, and when a dozen doctors can't determine what's wrong, her parents decide to move to Montana for the fresh air. She's lost her friends, her parents are driving her crazy, her brother is dying—and she's helpless to change anything.

Until she receives mysterious instructions on how to become a Contender in the Brimstone Bleed. It's an epic race across jungle, desert, ocean, and mountain that could win her the prize she desperately desires: the Cure for her brother's illness. But all the Contenders are after the Cure for people they love, and there's no guarantee that Tella (or any of them) will survive the race.

The jungle is terrifying, the clock is ticking, and Tella knows she can't trust the allies she makes. And one big question emerges: Why have so many fallen sick in the first place?

My Review:

It has been really hard for me to write to this review. Because I had significant problems with the first 75% of this book. I was super excited to read this book. Most because I had heard a lot of good things of Victoria Scott's books and had been dying to read one. Secondly this one of the first ARCs I had actually received from publishers thanks to the wonderful people over at Scholastic. 

The first few pages of the book started off promising. The story is about a teenage girl Tella who has moved with her parents and her sick brother. As she is dying in the boredom that is now her life when one day something happens that will change her life forever. One night Tella finds a surprise package on her bed that reveals a headset with a cryptic message. She is invited to be a contender in the Brimstone Bleed, a race that is she wins she gets the ultimate prize; a cure for her dying brother. The story up to this point was rather interesting. Tella starts off a little annoying but super funny. And her love for her brother is very moving and heart felt. 

Things started hitting a plateau for me once Tella arrives as the meeting point to start the race. Here is has to choose an egg that will become her Pandora and assist her in the race. The reason that this story started becoming hard for me to read, was because it was way to similar to the Hunger Games with the Pandora being so similar to Katnisis' bow and arrow. But so many people who I spoke with on Twitter and reviews that I read on Goodreads kept raving about this book and told me to keep reading. So despite my hesitance I did continue reading and frankly I am glad I did. Frankly despite the slow start the end of the story was action packed and very enjoyable. 

Even though I was getting to the point where if I read the word Pandora one more time I would scream. (In all fairness there was a page where the word Pandora appeared 9 times). But the love and affection that Tella showed for not only her own Pandora but everyone elses was really sweet. Even though the situation was hard and obstacles many, Tella kept finding the strength to go on by remembering what all of the struggle was for; curing her brother. 

Then enters the love interest Guy. I was find of skeptical at first about this character. The authors starts off by introducing him in a light that makes you swoon., but then he kind of starts acting like a douche. However he does end up making up for some of his not cool behavior. What ended up winning me over was the big reveal over the true origins of the race. Unfortunately this reveal did not come around until the end of the book. I would have liked to see it come around somewhere towards the middle. But it was enough to make me want to continue on with this series.