Wildefire burned itself up, sadly

No no no no no no no just a million times no, Karsten Knight. I don't really even know why I rated this book two stars; it deserves a one but I feel like being nice today so it gets two stars for......I guess for even being published. Because either Knight is the smoothest negotiator in history, his publishers have never read a good book in their lives, or they all are idiots. Maybe even a mix of all three, but I'm guessing more of the latter. A lot more of the latter. 

First of all, I really hated Ashline. And mostly not in the same way I hated other TSTL heroines like Luce, Bella, or Bethany. Those girls were mostly retarded idiots. Ashline is literally crazy. And to top it all off, she's dumber and duller than a freaking fruit fly. In order to demonstrate some of her total idiocy is with her powers. For well over half of the book, she declares over and over and over again that she's not special at all, even with all of the glaring signs. The plot of the first half of the story pretty much goes like this: 
*Ashline is albe to throw a girl about 20 or more feet in the air and her sister is able to call down lightning to fry a girl* 

Ashline (or A hole, as I will now call her): I'm not special! 

Me: okayy....... 

*A-hole is able to push a brand-new, two ton truck so fast and so hard that she'srunning and is able to vault into the bed of the truck in one leap* 

Me: *does a double take* 

A-hole: I'm not special! 

Me: whaaaa- 

*A-hole and four other kids are able to hear the screams of a Siren inside of their heads while no one else can, and they do a little telepathic pow-wow and everyone is told that they are gods* 

A-hole: I'm not special! I'm just mortal! It must all be a fluke! 

Me: *blood pressure begins to spike* 

*she wakes up to her bed freaking lit on fire* 

A-hole: I don't know what's causing this because I don't have any powers! (her sister at this point even comments on how idiotic she is that she doesn't know what's causing it. Hint, hint, it's you, A-hole!) 

Me: GAAAAAAHHH! *has a heart attack* 

* A-hole finally realizes after only burning her palm on her hubby's chest that maybe she is......wait for it....after only 270 or so pages...... special! * 

A-hole: maybe I am special. Huh. * walks away then barely ever uses her powers again and just bumbles around the rest of the book* 

Me: *slaps forehead* 

This was probably one of the most off-putting things about the whole book. She so consistently denied what she could do with all of the glaring signs that she was special; hell they were practically screaming at the girl, that I just got tired of the book as a whole. 

Now I get to the crazy part. There is a scene in the beginning of the book (view spoiler) and instead of running away she goes and has a casual conversation with herdemented sister like nothing just happened. I'm not even joking. It was a totally normal conversation; she completely forgot that the body was even there. There wasn't even any inner dialogue where she was trying to distract her sister by talking; it was like she had a very, very severe case of ADHD. 

 
A-hole: "oh wow, a body. So, what are you doing this weekend?" 

And while I was still trying to recover from the severe fuckery of the first thirty pages there is a scene where her boyfriend of two months, Bobby, wants to get past second base, and she denies him because she doesn't want to rush. Now that's alright, but she becomes so enraged that they're breaking up (even though she's the one that ends it) that she throws a clock with such force that it shatters into a million pieces. That's not even the worst part. After shattering the clock her boyfriend calls her crazy, and while in her head she is raging that she's definitely not crazy; in sheer crazy anger, she rips a lamp out of the wall with such force that she makes a hole where the lamp was plugged in, and oh, did I mention she's screaming unintelligibly the whole time? Bleh. Then, a little while later while pushing a two ton truck (which is totally normal *sigh*) she imagines Bobby bound and gagged with his face in the dirt, screaming, while she steadily comes closer and closer with the truck, ready to crush him. Now I don't know about you, but if a guy of two months (who I haven't even had sex with) breaks up with me, I'm not going to feel like I need to kill him. Maybe slap him, but not crush him to death under a truck! I think the problem was that Knight just tried so hard for his character not to be a Bella swan and instead went overboard on whole "being the feminist" angle that is just became almost nauseating for me to read. Sigh. 

Geez I'm sighing half to death over this book. 

Oh, and do you guys want to know the extremely horrible triumph scene for our A-hole? She beats her sister in a match of tennis. A freaking. Match. Of tennis. 

 
..............balls. 

I'm speechless. Well, almost. Is that really the best that Knight could come up with? Whatever happened to the part where they were supposed to save the world? And unless they change it on Goodreads, there is apparently only one book. Bleh. There were just sooo many things that happened in this book that Knight just dropped off is and never talked about again. The whole saving the world debacle is only one example. There's the whole case of, "where are my true parents" that she agonizes for over half the book was fixed within a page. Then, the whole reason why Eve really fought with A-hole towards the end of the book: (view spoiler) That's one really big reason why they freaking fight in the first place, so to just have it end, and kind of cruelly, too, with the asshole first abandoning, then totally forgetting her (view spoiler) and just letting her be hunted and killing people. I mean, I guess I could understand if she's really that savage, but she should have at least agonized over her own flesh and blood turning out that way. It makes her seem very cold-hearted. 

Oh, and did anyone else find it even slightly creepy/ weird that A-hole's love interest is a freshman in college, and she's only a sophomore in high school? For one, that's at least a three to four year difference (that makes him 19 or 20 while she's 16) and he randomly becomes totally smitten with her after a mere glance at the local bar. If that's not a case insta-love, I don't know what is. 

Oh and the flow is some of the most horrendous stuff I've ever read. He jumps from place to place and time to time, with minimal to no segue between them. I have to go back and re-read the parts to somehow make a bridge between the jumps and pretty much understand what the fuck just happened. Here's an example: 

" She rolled the dowels back together, set the scroll down beside the rocking chair, and fixed her gaze on the lawn. It took her a moment to realize that she was staring at the spot in the grass where Lizzie Jacobs had landed, dead, when she’d rolled off the roof. But anywhere was better than looking at the instructions Jack had left for Rolfe. Ashline’s scroll consisted of three words. Rolfe’s scroll consisted of only two. 

PROTECT PELE 
(the upcoming quote is the next paragraph. Not even a new chapter which would kind of make sense; it's the next. Freaking. Paragraph) 

The wind in her hair. Her leather jacket billowing behind her. The tingle of the sun against her face. " 

AHHHHH! *rips our hair* This is just one of the many awkward shifts that make no sense, and they royally pissed me off. I wanted to read about the emotion that goes through a person's mind when they realize someone died for them. Even denial about it all, anger, anything, but he just goes straight to her riding a motorcycle. And just in case my uppercase lettering isn't enough, here's a picture: 

 

Pain. Complete, total, and utter pain 

And I found none of the supporting cast of characters that Knight created likable at all. They never really connected with me or made me feel something for them. They all were either douchebags, turn friends into 45 year old women, or total ice-queens. Oh, or they were alcoholics and every time you met them they were totally hammered. 

 
Friends. If they're not growing ivy claws, aging years in seconds, playing with people's minds, turning them into psychopaths, ignoring you, insulting you to your face, or trying to kill you, they're drinking! Don't they sound just fantastic?! *rolls eyes sarcastically* 

And I feel slightly ashamed, but I never actually finished it. I got to about ten pages before the book ends, and the damn paragraph break that I showed earlier just made me put it down. The only way that the ending-since I'm pretty sure was totally stupid- could have pulled me into the book again was if Jesus had came riding out of the book on page 390 on the back of a unicorn who farted glitter; haloed by a bunch of tiny, singing fairies, and told me that if I read the last ten pages, the fountain of youth would spring forth, and underneath the bubbling fountain, was the Ark of the Covenant with the holy grail sitting atop it. Oh, and the end to world hunger. Oh, and another special, smaller, fountain that granted me any sort of superpower I wished. 

Yeaaahhhh not gonna happen