For Girls Who Walk Through Fire is a book about vengeance, a society that has failed us, and survival. It’s a book full of rage, friendship, and magic all at once. Keep reading this book review for my full thoughts.
Summary
Elliott D’Angelo-Brandt is sick and tired of putting up with it all. Every week, she attends a support group for teen victims of sexual assault, but all they do is talk. Elliott’s done with talking. What she wants is justice.
And she has a plan for getting it: a spell book that she found in her late mom’s belongings that actually works. Elliott recruits a coven of fellow survivors from the group. She, Madeline, Chloe, and Bea don’t have much in common, but they are united in their rage at a system that heaps judgments on victims and never seems to punish those who deserve it.
As they each take a turn casting a hex against their unrepentant assailants, the girls find themselves leaning on each other in ways they never expected—and realizing that revenge has heavy implications. Each member of the coven will have to make a choice: continue down the path of magical vigilantism or discover what it truly means to claim their power.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
From the premise alone, I was a fan of For Girls Who Walk Through Fire. It’s my kind of book which explores the concept of revenge and brings the magic. Frustrated with a lack of justice, for Elliott, Madeline, Chloe and Bea they feel enraged at the world’s lack of justice, indignation, and measures to change. I’ve been where they are. The ways justice doesn’t exist the same to women, marginalized identities, and in a system that perpetuates and excuses the actions of their assailants.
Within their coven, their patched together group, exists a chance at justice at trying to right the scales. An opportunity to unite against a system that seems to be stacked against them. But For Girls Who Walk Through Fire explores the idea of guilt, revenge, and healing. What it means to try to even the score, to watch the ones who are bystanders and complicit, finally get a taste of punishment. But what about the ones stuck within the ring of echoes and ripples?
Overall,
For Girls Who Walk Through Fire looks at those moments when how we see someone changes – they lose their mask – and the person we thought we knew or loved, disappears. Elliott, Madeline, Chloe and Bea they live with the wounds, the consequences of speaking out, and their lives changed – but it rarely seems to be reflected. It will inspire rage in a system which blames the victims and in a culture where the assailants and those who perpetuate escape blame or consequences.
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However, DeRose illustrates the ways revenge focuses our efforts on the assailants – not on ourselves or on changing the system, speaking up in support. And how sometimes what we think is supposed to help us, ends up leaving us hollow. It’s a book that explores revenge and healing. Find For Girls Who Walk Through Fire on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, & Blackwells.