“After the Fire” by Will Hill is a novel that explores the journey of Moonbeam, a teenage girl, as she recovers from a traumatic event referred to as “The Fire.” The novel bounces back and forth from the moments that led up to the Fire to Moonbeam’s present day. At the beginning of the novel, there is a mystery as Moonbeam feels the guilt for something, but it is unclear what it is that she feels guilty about.

The novel does a great job of holding that suspense throughout the book, without it being excessive to a point of nauseam. Even near the end, I still could not anticipate the cliffhangers and plot twists. The suspense kept me interested in the book to the point where I could not put it down. This is even more impressive because I usually struggle to finish longer books and “After the Fire” is almost 450 pages, but I managed to finish the novel in a matter of days.

Another aspect that I found interesting about this book was its ability to tackle current sentiments and views with the use of a fictional storyline. It is not a real situation, but the situation that this book describes mirrors real-life events. Even if it differs from the issue that it is trying to approach, the ideas still get through and it urges the readers to question the world around them.

“I liked this book because it tackles a subject that I had never read about before,” said Megan Ashley, 12. “I know that cults have existed, but this was the first time that I heard of what it could be like being forced into one for your whole life. It really showed the amount of manipulation that goes into keeping the members happy and believing and loving their leader.”

The novel is able to have the reader understand how cults function and how the manipulation works. The suspense of the story builds as the manipulation causes the harmful parts of the cult to slowly be revealed. Even though this cult is fictional, it is not a stretch to say that there are real cults out there, just like this one, and that people may be in danger.

This novel is also nominated for the Eliott Rosewater award, which is an award voted on by high school students each year. The voting for this year’s award is available at this link. I know already that I will be voting for this book for this year’s award because it significantly impacted me while I read it, which to me makes a book great since it is able to make me feel a range of emotions.