The Burning Girl

THE BURNING GIRL

by Claire Messud

 

Nomination: LA Times Finalist 2017

 

Date Read: November 21, 2021

 

The Burning Girl is a novel about adolescent friendship and the inevitable growing apart that happens during that most delicate and fraught period of growing up. Cassie and Julia have been best friends since nursery school. They know everything there is to know about each other until, that is, they reach middle school. As their social world begins to change, so too do Cassie and Julia.

 

Cassie begins a friendship with another girl that propels and mirrors the changes in Cassie’s world. Her eternally single mother, Bev, begins dating the doctor that treated Cassie’s dog bite. Not only does he move in quickly, but he takes both Bev and Cassie in hand, ruling with an iron and religious will. He demands everyone bend to that will. His expectations become increasingly difficult to abide by and Cassie moves further and further from his grasp.

 

Cassie’s life becomes so unbearable that she begins to believe her biological father isn’t actually dead but a man that deserted her mother. She finds a man who she can push into almost every detail of what she knows of her dad, except for the fact that it’s all coming from her own mind. She even sets out to meet him. You can’t help but ache for Cassie, for her need for some alternate version of her life, for her need to find someone that loves and understands her.

 

While all this is happening, Julia has been pushed to the side, watching from afar Cassie’s life implode, learning what’s going on with her from gossip and Cassie’s ex-boyfriend Peter. While Julia is the one to ultimately save Cassie’s life, their friendship is forever gone.

 

What makes this book resonate with readers is we all have a story about that best friend that grew apart. I have several. You wonder what became of them but always regard their memory with love and, possibly, concern. Messud is excellent at articulating those moments that when we are living them don’t seem important and yet, will be remembered forever. Even more importantly, she shows us that we can never really know the inner workings and motivations of those we love best. In essence, everyone in our orbit is a mystery.

 

“Each of us shapes our stories so they make sense of who we think we are.”

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