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    Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down: A Novel
    Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down: A Novel
    Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down: A Novel
    Audiobook12 hours

    Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down: A Novel

    Written by Anne Valente

    Narrated by Andi Arndt and Todd Haberkorn

    3/5

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    About this audiobook

    The lives of four teenagers are capsized by a shocking school shooting and its aftermath in this powerful debut novel, a coming-of-age story with the haunting power of Station Eleven and the bittersweet poignancy of Everything I Never Told You.

    As members of the yearbook committee, Nick, Zola, Matt, and Christina are eager to capture all the memorable moments of their junior year at Lewis and Clark High School—the plays and football games, dances and fund-drives, teachers and classes that are the epicenter of their teenage lives. But how do you document a horrific tragedy—a deadly school shooting by a classmate?

    Struggling to comprehend this cataclysmic event—and propelled by a sense of responsibility to the town, their parents, and their school—these four ""lucky"" survivors vow to honor the memories of those lost, and also, the memories forgotten in the shadow of violence. But the shooting is only the first inexplicable trauma to rock their small suburban St. Louis town. A series of mysterious house fires have hit the families of the victims one by one, pushing the grieving town to the edge.

    Nick, the son of the lead detective investigating the events, plunges into the case on his own, scouring the Internet to uncover what could cause a fire with no evident starting point. As their friend pulls farther away, Matt and Christina battle to save damaged relationships, while Zola fights to keep herself together.

    A story of grief, community, and family, of the search for understanding and normalcy in the wake of devastating loss, Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down explores profound questions about resiliency, memory, and recovery that brilliantly illuminate the deepest recesses of the human heart.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateOct 4, 2016
    ISBN9780062564863
    Author

    Anne Valente

    Anne Valente’s first short-story collection, By Light We Knew Our Names, won the Dzanc Books Short Story Prize. Her fiction appears in One Story, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and the Chicago Tribune, and her essays appear in The Believer and the Washington Post. Originally from St. Louis, she teaches creative writing and literature at Hamilton College.

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    Reviews for Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down

    3/5

    56 ratings22 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I had read a short story collection by this author that I loved and was really looking forward to reading this novel...until I found out it was about a school shooting. I had no appetite for that at all and decided not to bother with it until I recently saw a raving review for it on youtube. I thought I would just pick it up and try a few chapters. That was a stroke of luck for me because I thought it was a powerful story and was unlike anything I have read before. It does begin with a school shooting but it is really more about the effects of trauma on the individual and society. The story centers around 4 friends who are all in different places in the school when the attack happens and therefore all have different experiences ranging in severity. I didn't find the chapter where the shooting took place to be sensationalized at all, which is what I was originally turned off by. Instead, it was chilling and surreal. The author did an amazing job of taking a particular moment in time and breaking it down into slow motion. The smell of blood, the sight of a worn spine on a book, the feeling of a heart hammering in your chest, all instantly imprinting on a young girls mind in fine detail as violence and chaos reigns all around her. I couldn't pull my face out of that part of the book. There is a lot of story after that part which deals with the aftermath and adds another story line in the way of a series of fires. I've seen many people refer to this as YA but I would have to disagree. The writing style and plot structure is not what you would expect from most YA books. I think it would take a teen with very mature reading tastes to enjoy this. However it was a great read for me and one of the best books I have ever read about grief.
    • 2/5
      I wanted to check out this book back when it first was released. Thus the reason I was looking forward to reading this book when I got the chance with the paperback copy. In fact, this book is very timely now as it was back than. The story started out fine. There wasn't a lot of details spent on the shooting but this is because this is the point of the story to slowly drag out the details that lead up to the horrific event. Yet, this is not why I didn't care for this book. It is because I didn't feel any connection to any of the characters. This is a character driven type of story. Also, I thought that the story was a little depressing. Survivors were dying in house fires. This was sad. After getting almost half way through the book and not feeling anything for the characters, I put this book down.
    • 3/5
      This book was crazy heartbreaking. These kids have to deal with the aftermath of school shootings and then houses going up in flames. Very well written - you feel heavy grief for the characters. The ending is a little questionable.
    • 3/5
      Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down shows so much exceptional writing. Valente is clearly a talented writer with great ideas. The plot of this novel is a solid idea. The prose is beautiful at times. And yet the whole novel is such a great disappointment. I hate to say it as there are novels that are horrible in so many ways and this work does not belong among them. Yet, I didn’t enjoy Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down at all.This novel just has too many quirks to succeed. The narrative constantly delves in ramblings about pop culture or the news. Perhaps these are meant to show the author did her research. Or perhaps, more meaningfully, they highlight how the world keeps spinning despite the tragedies at the heart of the novel. Regardless of the reasons, it doesn’t work. It disrupts the forward movement and is very out of place. Every five pages there are comments about the war in Iraq and the baseball season. “Will they ever find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?” Does it matter in any way for the plot of this novel? Even if this entire novel is all some allegory for the war in Iraq or something, it does not work.The other big problem is the characters. Their reactions aren’t believable. Their interactions with one another seem forced. They’re about as multi-dimensional as the pages they people. I couldn’t relate. They felt completely like caricatures.And then there were issues with overall believability. The way the community, the students, and the police react to the events that take place didn’t seem logical. The existence of this yearbook staff—four juniors without mention of a faculty advisor—who meet in places like bookstores to discuss the yearbook. It all felt so unnatural.And yet, the writing can be so brilliant at times. Ugghhh. I hate writing these kinds of review.On the plus side, I did like the ending. Guaranteed, some will find it lacking, but I thought it was satisfying. It provides enough of an answer and it captures some of the best writing in the novel.Overall, I strongly disliked this novel. And yet I can’t completely write it off. I’d even read something from this author again if I were given the chance. But if I recognize some of the same quirks in that future work, I’m telling myself now, I will give up before reaching the end.
    • 3/5
      I'm not 100% sure what I think about this book. I was really invested in the characters and seeing how they dealt with the aftermath of such a huge tragedy (school shooting, compounded by fires consuming the homes of victims' families). But I also really wanted a concrete answer to what was happening, what was causing the fires, and I don't feel satisfied with the one the novel presented. I guess maybe I should have seen it coming, but it felt a bit unsatisfactory to me. YMMV.I received an advance reader's copy of this book from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.
    • 2/5
      This is a novel that had lots of potential, but missed it mark. Author Valente's use of language is simply poetic at times, but that is not enough for such a potent theme (four teenagers attempting to come to grips with high school mass shooting).The first half of this books reads well enough but the last half became tedious. For myself, this had much to due my being unable, try as I might, to connect with these characters. This could have been a great read...alas, it was not.
    • 3/5
      Heartbreaking and painful, but beautifully rendered, this novel of a school shooting and it's aftermath through the eyes of four students will have readers hooked. Alternatively told through the omniscient "we" and through individual lenses of four yearbook club staffers, the whole story is slowly pieced together, where each of them were in the building, how they were affected, how they grieved, and how they came together to try and chronicle an indescribable event. As if the aftermath of the shooting that claimed over 20 students wasn't enough, a string of house fires ignite throughout the community, only affecting the parents and families of those that lost teenagers in the school shooting. These four, courageous, broken, questioning teens try to piece together their own and their community's sorrows. A wonderful read, not for the faint of heart. I received this book for free from Librarything Giveaways in return for my honest, unbiased review.
    • 1/5
      I was not able to finish reading this book, though believe me I have been trying.The prose itself feels like a forced attempt to be immersive, poetic, and lyrical; instead it feels disjointed and distracted. The narration is confusing, sliding between individual characters and the four as a whole group. I was a teen when the Columbine shooting happened. I remember the news coverage vividly, the fear, the confusion, the blame. This book has none of the urgency or anxiety of those moments, and the teen perspective feels hollowed out.In the rare cases that I feel like I just can't finish a book, I'll skip to about the midway point between where I am and the end and read a few pages; this is almost always enough for me to go back and keep reading. If not, I'll head to the final chapter (I don't mind spoilers). In this case, reading the end unfortunately cemented the decision not to read this book the whole way through. I doubt I will read anything by this author in the future.
    • 4/5
      Four survivors of a school shooting struggle to find a way to memorialize all that has happened, while fires rip through the homes of the fallen's families.This is an absolutely beautifully written book. Valente has a gorgeous grasp of language. The book is almost surreal at times, due to Valente's unique writing style, and she really gets at the heart of how different people react during times of tragedy and terror. There is also an overarching mystery that is really intriguing.This is also a very difficult read. School shootings are always a subject I struggle with reading about, perhaps because they are one of my biggest fears, and still feel so immediate. Valente's grasp of language and writing style also make everything she writes about feel so graphic. I had to put the book down and read lighter fare in between. I started this book in time to have it done before its publication date, but it took me over two months to actually finish reading it.I was originally drawn to this book because of the mystery behind it, of who was setting the fires and why. Had I realized just how gut wrenching some of the pages would be, I most likely not have requested a copy. But I would have missed out on a really well-written, emotional, deep read. The ending is not one that I think everyone will necessary be satisfied with, but I was really surprised by how much I thought it really fit.
    • 3/5
      I do believe I may be a bit biased when it comes to this book. I felt a greater connection to it as I am from the same area that the book takes place. Overall I was fine with this book as I did enjoy the style of writing, but I did not enjoy the point of view at times. The author would switch from first to third, and I have never been a fan of multiple point of view books. I enjoy reading YA books, so I was fine with the mentality of the characters. I had just recently been given another advanced reader copy for review that was about a high school shooting, and this won was a much better read in my opinion, but I do feel it was lacking a bit more traction with the plot. I love emotional exploration and felt this was definitely an emotional read, and I did love that it was dark. I tend to be attracted to morose stories.
    • 3/5
      I don't really know where to start. This novel has an interesting premise (following a school shooting, the homes of victims begin to burn down) but was so completely overwritten that it was a struggle to engage with it. I didn't really care about any of the characters, I hated the plural first-person narration, I hated that it would then switch to third person, I hated the overly formal dialogue that rang so false, I just kept rolling my eyes... Etc. Etc. Etc. I am probably being overly generous with a 2.5 star rating, but something kept me reading. I don't know exactly what, but....Not recommended.
    • 1/5
      I guess I just need to stop reading books about teenagers completely. It's entirely possible the low rating here is largely because of personal bias. But I thought this book, centered around a high school mass shooting and subsequent related house fires, was potentially a book for adults. But it was not--at least, not for this adult. Maybe it's because I'm a half a life removed from the sixteen year old main characters, but I really think this book could've cut about half of the content right out and have been a better read. Of course, it's totally faithful to what teenagers are actually like; one hundred percent in their heads, wholly consumed with all the new emotions and feelings about their friends, their relationships, etc. And understandably more after a tragedy like the one described. But my God, their internal dialogue would be better described as aninterminable dialogue! I had to skim the second half of the book. And I only did that much because I wanted to know the answer to the mystery: why were all the victims' houses and families burning to the ground? Spoiler alert: (view spoiler) As an actual concept, I found this idea, frankly, stupid. If it was supposed to be "literary" and I was supposed to enjoy the poignancy of it, or find it deep and revelatory... I didn't. This may be a great book for teenagers (older teenagers--there are discussions of sex, sex scenes, masturbation descriptions, including a gay teenage couple). So, in summary, this was a book with an audience in mind that I was not a part of. If this was intentional, I would have appreciated a "YA" indicator somewhere--then I would have known to avoid it, and the author could have avoided this one star rating. I saw later in a separate area (or maybe this has been added after I saw the description) that it was billed as a coming-of-age story, and had I seen this earlier, I would not have requested an ARC. **I received a free advance copy of this book in exchange for this obviously unbiased review.**
    • 2/5
      Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down – Or; Perhaps Lets Set Fire to This BookWhile it isn’t immediately clear if the narrator is an adult looking back on adolescence or the age the framework describes, what is readily apparent is that the author either hasn’t ever been that age, or at the very least hasn’t spent time around anyone that age in a long time. Throughout this novel, there is a marked formality of language in use by these characters that is completely out of place for teenagers; at least those outside a speech and debate tournament or drama club.The story describes a mass shooting and its aftermath. When describing the assailant a particular passage comes to mind:“Who attended Des Peres Elementary with us so many years before we moved onward to Lewis and Clark High, who sat upon the magic carpet with us during story time […] a loner, but never picked upon.”While it may well be the case that the author has a compelling story to tell, I found this use of language so awkward that it was a considerable distraction that kept me from becoming fully engaged with these characters.And then, there is the matter of the narrator…Or, perhaps I should say narrators? It’s hard to really say. The novel moves through a series of perspectives: first person plural, third person omniscient, and vignettes which are posed as separate entries; written as though they are reports or portions of newspaper articles. There is a certain logic to the progression, which recurs, throughout the course of the book, but it feels very stilted and extremely gimmicky. Once again, any emotional impact the underlying story might contain is diminished by the layers of clunky device; sort of like trying to feel velvet through several pairs of latex gloves.The book does eventually settle into a rhythm, but it isn’t a particularly compelling refrain. I had tremendous difficulty staying interested enough to keep reading. I had to ultimately force myself to finish over a weekend after I’d had the book for about a month. Typically, I can finish a novel of this length in a long afternoon-into-evening marathon. In this case, every page felt like an effort, and hardly one worth making.Apart from the stilted language and clunky narrative device I just had trouble ever caring about these four teenagers. While they are caught up in dramatic events, none of them are charismatic enough to really inspire any sympathy or even a sustained interest. They do not behave in a way that seems genuine, or motivated by anything in particular other than a flailing response to surrounding trauma. They are demonstrably wounded, but not in a way that seems to clearly impact their trajectory thereafter.There is also a sense of futile repetition which begins early in the book, and ultimately never resolves. We have a sequence that occurs, coupled with the awareness that it will inevitably repeat. This kind of echoing repetition, when properly executed, can be haunting and poignant. Here, though, it simply feels like events are recurring in order to extend the length of this story into novel length. No additional nuance seems added by this reiteration. We simply repeat the same horrifying refrain until it is such a foregone conclusion, it ceases to be horrifying anymore, simply bewildering.Even with all that said, I haven’t yet addressed the thing about this book I found the most off-putting. From the outset, this book places itself firmly in the realm of historical fiction. September 11th, the Iraq war and weapons of mass destruction are all conjured along with a clear allusion to the mass shooting at Columbine High. The events unfold in a fashion that may lack emotional authenticity, but are distinctly situated within the realm of possibility. Waiting for some explanation to the cited events grew tiresome, but it always seemed just over the horizon. Now, while I suppose it could be posited that the author was making some broader comment about the senselessness of the kinds of incidents described in the story, but since I find no evidence of that kind of subtlety in any of her writing, I can’t assign that kind of finesse to this element either. As the book comes to a close, in what seems like mid-stride for the pacing of the story theretofore, she simply abdicates verisimilitude and offers a wildly unsatisfying pretext that amounts to “Magic is a thing!” I was both quite surprised by this drastic left-turn in the story arc, and found myself earnestly disgusted with what felt like a hard yank on the emergency brake of a story going nowhere in particular.I think the underlying concept – not truly introduced until the closing pages – actually has an appealing basis. However, it would have been much better if condensed. It had enough momentum to propel a reader through a short story and would have been better rendered with greater brevity. This effort feels as though the author was focused more on generating a work of a particular length, than serving the needs of the story. She also occasionally crafts a sentence of such beauty, it makes the surrounding dross that much harder to bear.
    • 3/5
      It's a story that we can't wrap our minds around. What brings someone to the point of mass killing, especially murder within a school. "Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down" sets the stage of the horror and unspeakable trauma for those inside the school. Fortunately, the author succeeds in relating this terror without lowering the reader into graphic details. The rest of the novel is spent following four teens as they struggle with what they saw, what they experienced, and how to put normalcy back into their lives. The journey back to safety is interrupted with the burning of each victims home and the remaining family members. Grief - unspeakable and fathomless grief. I found myself prodding the story to travel quicker, but by the end I appreciated the author's lumbering through the everyday lives of the characters. As with real life shootings that we seem to have in our society, the affects are long, not neatly tied together, and life changing. I received this book through the Early Reviewers program.
    • 4/5
      Actual Rating: 3.75This book is so hard to review, for so many different reasons. Firstly, I love that this book (kind of) addresses the about school shootings - something that has been plaguing America in recent years and definitely needs to be discussed more.Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down describes the aftermath of a mass school shooting. It follows Nick, Zola, Matt, and Christina, as they all struggle to deal with the scars that they will have for the rest of their lives. But it's not over. One by one, the homes of the classmates who had lost their lives in the shooting go up in flames, and families are broken, once again.Matt, Nick, Zola, and Christina, all deal with these events each in their own ways, and recovering is much harder than they would have anticipated, especially when there are so many questions still left unanswered.I thought that the characters in this were very three dimensional, and it was definitely easy to feel the grief that they were struggling to overcome. Because there were four main characters, their personalities were evident in the way they dealt with their situations. I won't lie - there were moments where I was annoyed with how a character acted, but I had to remind myself about their situation, and once I stepped back, it was very easy to understand why they were acting the way they did.The plot for this, when I stop and think about it, really doesn't encompass much, because the majority of the story focused on emotions, which I think was just as powerful. I do have a little issue with the ending of the story, which is left pretty open-ended. Normally, I have no problem with endings that are left for interpretation, but I feel like the ending of this left me more confused than anything. I usually have no problem suspending my disbelief, but I think, because the story was set in such a realistic setting, the second it departed from that near the end, I became a little lost, especially when the story left my questions unanswered.Okay, now to the main thing that boosted my high review. The writing style. It is so powerful, so touching, and it was the one thing that really kept me reading the story. This book is also divided into several sections that are not all storytelling, such as character profiles, news articles, and even images, and I think these also helped in allowing me to get into the story. The writing style was extremely consistent throughout, and it really allowed me to feel the gut-wrenching pain that the main characters were experiencing.Overall, what I would say is this: read this book for the writing style. Definitely. But after being so emotionally invested in all the characters, I am still a little disappointed in the ending.
    • 1/5
      My apologies, but I tried to begin to read this book twice and could not stick with it. The cover is frightening and I just could not get past page 10. The book is not interesting and does not draw the reader into the story. I've read several other books about school shootings which were very good. This book just doesn't compare.
    • 3/5
      3.5 stars. This book was a very intense and disturbing read for me. There is a mass killing at a high school. As the shooter makes his way through the hallways four juniors on the yearbook team take refuge under desks, behind doors, hoping the gunman doesn't target them. In the aftermath of the shootings these four students try to come to terms with what they saw and how do they now go on with everyday life. In addition to the mass shooting the houses and occupants of the deceased teens are burning down with no explanation. The story was very sad and haunting as lives of the survivors would never be the same. Just too much sorrow in their young lives and too many unanswered questions. Well written but very very depressing.13 likes ·
    • 3/5
      Four high school juniors who are friends and yearbook colleagues find their lives upended when a fellow classmate goes on a massive shooting rampage before committing suicide in the school gym. The shocked community barely has time to comprehend the horror before it's compounded by a rash of house fires that are systematically taking the lives of the victims' families. Each teen reacts differently as the four wrestle with their task as yearbook editors while coming to grips with their own personal traumas and the need for answers. I wanted to like this book more than i ultimately did. It began well, but about a third of the way in the pacing slowed, the mystery behind the fires got bogged down in too much investigative minutia (that then became their own brief chapters), and i never felt fully invested in the characters. I was expecting more intensity from this story and a ratcheting up of hysteria as the community sought answers that weren't coming. Instead, the book felt more meditative and the four protagonists emotionally thin. SPOILERS!!I'm afraid the ending left me disappointed, too, because it seemed a little ghoulish to kill off ALL twenty-eight families of the dead teens! Really?! Did not ONE family in the entire group feel in their hearts that they needed to continue on, especially the families who had other children? The reasoning just fell apart for me, particularly in light of the fact that they were dying in the same chronological order as their children. That logical fact against a paranormal phenomenon didn't quite add up.Thank you to LibraryThing and William Morrow publishers for the early review copy.
    • 2/5
      An ordinary school day turns into the unspeakable as a student storms through the school, shooting fellow classmates and teachers. Terror-struck students, teachers, and staff struggle to comprehend the loss of thirty six. How will anyone move past this tragedy when there can no longer be normal school days for anyone in the town?Then the homes of the students who died begin to burn, stunning the community. It is impossible to read past the first two paragraphs of this narrative without recalling the gut-wrenching school shootings in Columbine and Sandy Hook. Beautifully written, it is a tale both haunting and eerie, a tale of violence. At times, it is impossibly difficult to read. Beginning with the inclusive first person “we,” the chapters alternate with narratives following a small group of students united by friendship and their work on the school yearbook. Christina, Zola, Matt, and Nick recall the events in the school and remember their dead classmates in an attempt to process the horror. They will always know exactly where they were when the shooter stormed the halls and changed everything for them.While the students’ memories are indescribably horrific, the recounting of them is a sort of grief on grief on grief with no real resolution of the tragedy suffered by the teens, the school staff, their families, and the community. Readers may find the collective “we” off-putting as it creates a distance that makes it difficult for readers to relate to the characters. Unfortunately, the narrative chapters never offer any resolution for the reader. The “matryoshka of grief” spilling over page after page becomes all but impossible to read, especially when the resolution of the mystery is unsatisfying and the shooter's motives remain shrouded in mystery.I received a free copy of this book through the LibraryThing Early Readers program
    • 4/5
      Thank you for the copy Early Reviewers! I really enjoyed the characters, the story and the writing style of this book. Unfortunately, school shootings and tragedies are becoming an all too familiar topic, but this book showed how a community can deal with events. Anna Valente, a debut writer, is one I will be looking for in the future!
    • 5/5
      I was pleasantly surprised with "Our hearts will burn us down." It really shows that author Anne Valente did a lot of research, not only into school shootings, but also the lives of teenagers. I thought that all the characters were fully realized, even the adults. Without giving away the core premise, I think it is totally justifiable. This is a very thought provoking book. One I keep thinking about long after finishing.
    • 4/5
      I won an ARC of this book from LibraryThing. It was a really interesting, well written book. It is the story of four high school juniors, friends who put together the yearbook, who survive a terrible school shooting that kills 35 students and teachers. They are all in different places and have different experiences during that morning and the author does a great job of portraying how they each deal with their feelings about what happened. As if the shooting wasn't enough, the homes of the families of the students killed began to catch fire. The families of the victims are all killed by the fire and in a mysterious twist there are no remains found at any of the fires. The resolution of this mystery - if you can call it that - definitely requires some belief in the supernatural. Not only do you not get a true resolution about the fires, you never do find out what triggered the student gunman in the first place. The lack of true reason for both crimes is the only thing that I would change about this otherwise interesting and though provoking book.