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I'd Rather Burn Than Bloom Audiobook
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Packed with voice, I’d Rather Burn than Bloom is a powerful young adult novel about a Filipina-American teen who tries to figure out who she really is in the wake of her mother’s death.
Some girls call their mother their best friend. Marisol Martin? She could never relate. She and her mom were forever locked in an argument with no beginning and no end. Clothes, church, boys, no matter the topic, Marisol always felt like there was an unbridgeable gap between them that they were perpetually shouting across, one that she longed to close.
But when her mother dies suddenly, Marisol is left with no one to fight against, haunted by all the things that she both said and didn’t say.
Her dad seems completely lost and, worse, baffled by Marisol’s attempts to connect with her mother’s memory through her Filipino culture. Her brother Bernie is retreating further and further into himself. And when Marisol sleeps with her best friend’s boyfriend—and then punches said best friend in the face—she is left alone, with nothing but a burning anger and nowhere for it to go.
And Marisol is determined to stay angry. After all, there’s a lot to be angry about: her father, her mother, the world. But as a new friendship begins to develop with someone who just might understand, Marisol reluctantly starts to open up to her and to the possibility that there’s something else on the other side of that anger—something more to who she is and who she could be.
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“The representation of a Filipino experience in the United States is done with superlative skill, rendering this beautifully written debut a model for how to expertly weave culturally specific cues into a universal story. Heart-wrenching and heart-filled.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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“In her smart, poignant, and tear-jerking debut, Rogers expertly navigates the light and the dark, ensuring a delicate balance of laughter and tears from her readers. An aching and urgent book about love, loss, and finding one’s place in the world."
— Aditi Khorana, author of Mirror in the Sky -
“A moving meditation on grief and the healing balm of forgiveness―especially self-forgiveness. I’d Rather Burn than Bloom is a light in all the dark places…A brilliant, bold debut.”
— Aminah Mae Safe, author of Tell Me How You Really Feel -
“Insights into family dynamics, changing friendships, and biracial identity make for realistically messy and enjoyable character growth that one can’t help but empathize with.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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About Shannon C. F. Rogers
Shannon C. F. Rogers writes young adult novels, short fiction, and plays. She is a former editor on Lunch Ticket, and her work has appeared in Bodega Magazine and Newfound Journal as well as on stage with Tricklock Company and Lady Luck Productions. She earned her BA in creative writing from the University of New Mexico and her MFA in writing for young people at Antioch University Los Angeles.