How to Set a Fire and Why by Jesse Ball

Strike up a match and light a way to How To Set A Fire and Why, a contemporary fiction book by Jesse Ball about a teenage girl named Lucia who has lost everything she has cared for in her life and doesn't really care what happens to her.

Lucia's father is dead and her mother is living in a mental hospital, with no memory of who Lucia is.  The only person Lucia has in her life is her aunt, who she lives with.  Lucia is a troubled teen who has been kicked out of schools and is now starting a new one.  She arrives with the idea she isn't going to like anyone and not make any friends.  While trying her best to stay away from everyone in the school, she soon finds out they have an Arson Club and suddenly Lucia has found a group she wants to become a member of.  Lucia is willing to do whatever it takes to become a member of this club, even if it means to burn down a place.

The Cover:

Before reading the book: I didn't pay much attention to it and thought it really wasn't much.  Just a hand holding a lit match?  I just thought it was something to go along with the title and that was it.

After reading the book: The cover appeared to make more sense to me, especially knowing Lucia's character.  Known to dress mostly in black, the black polish on the nails appears to be telling us that this would be Lucia and how she's preparing to join the Arson Club in school.  I also thought it was clever how the cover is indeed a match book, the title of the book written where the design or logo would be.

Review:

What I Liked:

It's always a good sign when my attention is grabbed right away and Ball did that within the first chapter.  He didn't beat around the bush, we found out about Lucia's life right away.  We knew all she had in her life was her aunt and how she lived her life with the aunt all within the first time she spoke.  And it's easy to see that Lucia is a problem child, but only because of what has happened in her life.  I enjoyed the style in which Ball wrote this book.  Although it was in Lucia's point of view, each chapter being titled with an event or person in Lucia's life was perfect.  I felt that I was reading a diary by Lucia and it made you feel deep within her soul.  In the end, everything seemed to be tied in with the title of the book.  I'll admit, I was curious at first why the book would be titled the way it was, but then it all made sense.  And we all knew why Lucia would want to start a fire by reading the book.

What I Didn't Like:

While I liked the idea that Ball had Lucia tell her predictions of how her days would go before we saw how they actually did, the days she went to visit her mother at The Home, the predictions were repeated.  When that happens I tend to lose my interest in what's going on.  Who really wants to read the same thing over and over again, word for word?  It loses the reader.  I understand that every time she visits her mother it's the same, Ball had it mentioned when Lucia told about her mother, we didn't need for it to be told again in her words.  I wasn't too thrilled with the lack of rules Lucia had, first from her father and then by her aunt.  Especially when she would go and visit a friend after seeing her mother.  The friend was older and worked at a bar and would give liquor to Lucia when she was well underage.  What's worse there was no punishment for her when she would come home drunk.  Why would an aunt condone that kind of behavior?  It fits with her having problems in her life, but that's something her aunt should've done to have gotten her help.  The whole section taken to have Lucia's pamphlet for the Arson Club wasn't needed.  In fact, I didn't even bother to read through it once I got through the first two pages.  It was just too much to take in and Ball could've gotten his point across with all that written.  The ending felt unfinished and I wish there would've been more, something with closure.  Or maybe a sequel could be written.  The part that bothered me the most was that Ball never wrote how Lucia's father died or how her mother ended up going crazy.  In the book, Lucia never wants to mention it, but for the reader, I think Ball should've had that in there for us.

I rated this book 4 out of 5 stars and would recommend it to anyone who likes contemporary fiction, it was definitely different than other books I've read.  If you can get past the minor little parts that could've been changed, you will enjoy the book.  It's hard not to feel for Lucia and all that she's gone through in her life.