Reviews with content warning for Slavery - The House Is on Fire

Picked it up from the new shelf at the library. It follows 4 different people affected by the theater fire. The dilemmas felt very realistic. The history was interesting. The drama was riveting.

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morethanmylupus's review

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medium-paced

4.0

I'd never heard of this fire before picking up the book, but I found this story compelling. There is a lot of traumatic content in both the fire itself and the depictions of slavery, but I really liked how Beanland wove the narratives together to form a cohesive pictures of the fire and its aftermath.

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newfiemom's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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libraryofthecrypt's review

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medium-paced

3.0

I’m kind of wondering if I’m heading into a slump or if it was just the book. At 41% of the way in I mostly felt meh about the book. I didn’t really care for any of the characters either. And after finishing it I’m glad that I didn’t purchase this like I’ve been thinking about doing since April.

This was the first time I had heard of the fire and it’s clear that the author did quite a bit of research on it. If this book interest you I would still give this a read as I think it’s more of a me thing.

This made me want to go back down the rabbit hole of researching the 1800s and reading books set in that time period after this though. Not so much because of the story but because of the fire and realising how little I know about that time period.

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