YA Review: Wicked Like a Wildfire

In Wicked Like a Wildfire, Lana Popovic's gorgeous debut, the women of Iris's family are all witches who pass down a dangerous legacy of magic, some even dying for the beauty they create.

Iris remembers that the world of her childhood had been "brilliant and blazing and alive from every angle." Using her gleam (what her mother called "eating the moon"), Iris could make the whole world "explode into fractal fireworks." Twin sister Malina's gleam allowed her to harmonize three vocals by herself, creating "the precise pitch of wonder." But when a neighbor witnessed the seven-year-old twins and their mother, Jasmina, producing magic in their backyard, Jasmina put an end to the nighttime practices and forbade the use of magic ever again. That moment set Iris on a course of resentment and spite and, in turn, sparked a terrible, decade-long coldness from Jasmina.

Now 17, Iris feels like a thing apart, a "prickly offshoot" of the charm, grace and easy beauty her mother and sister share--the power to bloom had been her only way to feel both special and connected to the women in her family. One evening, Iris gets spectacularly wasted at a party and offers to "make a galaxy out of the ceiling" for an attractive new boy. Extremely hungover the next morning, she goes to work at Jasmina's café, where the appearance of a mysterious woman with striking white hair upsets Jasmina. When the woman leaves, Jasmina (who never drinks) gets stinking drunk and "weirdly lovey" with her black sheep daughter. The next day Iris arrives at the café to find blood everywhere and her mother's chest smashed in. Though Jasmina has no pulse and no heartbeat, something is keeping her from dying, keeping her faintly alive but moaning in relentless pain. And women begin appearing, women who also wield the gleam and issue conflicting demands of loyalty. Iris and Malina know they need to untangle the roots of their obscure family tree, so they set off with close friends (and brother and sister) Luka and Nikoleta on a road trip to find answers. Who was the white-haired woman? Who are these women with the gleam? And who was the new boy who let Iris make him a galaxy? What the teens find is a deadly curse passed down through the generations.

Popovic weaves a "wild and beautiful" tale, a contemporary world so seemingly different from our own that references to a "modern age full of mundane things" seem strangely out of place. The magic is old, going back to pre-Indo-European tribes and one woman who is at the heart of it all: a witch, a god, or both. Yet Iris's struggles with her mother ring true to any age, and the drive to create beauty feels universal. Readers will revel in the evocative language and sensory details that feel a time and place apart, in this first of a planned duology. --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI

Shelf Talker: Twins Iris and Malina are forbidden to use their magic, but when their mother is attacked, they must make sense of a deadly curse and the family of witches they never knew they had.

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