Fire Color One

Starred review from October 15, 2016
In any family, not everything is as it seems, but in Iris' family, this is a big problem.When white, 16-year-old Iris meets her father for the first time, he is dying. That doesn't stop her from feeling ambivalent. She has no memories of him and has been told all her life by her mother that he left 12 years ago because he wasn't interested in being a dad. She doesn't even want to meet him, but her mother insists because of the potential for a valuable inheritance. Iris has had no experience with positive parenting role models. Her mother and stepfather are usually drunk, broke, or trying desperately to get the big break they refuse to admit isn't coming. Iris' best friend, Thurston, left home long ago, so no parents there. When her dad and his story turn out to be completely different from what she's been told, it's both confusing and amazing. But how much love can they manage in the time he has left? Valentine writes about family dysfunction, arson, and art with equal levels of beauty and lyricism, creating a vivid landscape of heartache and redemption. The plot dips forward and backward in time with clarity and precision, managing to avoid tripping even in narrative tight corners. A story about an ugly situation that explodes into beauty through cunning and resilience. (Fiction. 13-17)

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December 1, 2016

Gr 8 Up-After pyromaniac Iris gets caught setting yet another fire, her mom, Hannah, and her stepfather whisk her from America to London, to live with Ernest, the father she's never met. Ernest is dying, and Hannah is desperate to get her hands on his fortune and priceless art collection. As Iris spends more time with Ernest, though, she begins to realize that he's not the man she's been taught to hate her whole life. They bond quickly over their shared love of art, in particular Fire Color One, a painting by Yves Klein that Iris learned about with her best friend, Thurston. Meanwhile, Thurston is somewhere on the other side of the world, and she has no way to reach him. A Carnegie Medal finalist, this beautifully written and darkly funny novel ends with a twist that will keep readers turning the pages long after bedtime. VERDICT With family dysfunction at its center, this is a poignant story about the power of art to connect and transform from the author of Me, the Missing, and the Dead.-Sarah Polace, Cuyahoga Public Library System, OH

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2016
Grades 9-12 Iris is only truly happy when she's watching fire. She's certainly not happy spending time with her vain, indifferent mother or her fame-hungry stepdad. And she isn't pleased to be dragged across the ocean to meet the father who abandoned hereven if he is dying. She quickly learns, however, the stories she was told about her dad might not be the whole truth. Iris and her father bond over a shared knowledge of art (he is an accomplished buyer), forging a connection beyond blood. Valentine (Me, the Missing, and the Dead, 2008) has composed a beautifully written exploration of the longing to know where one comes from, tempered by a fear of rejection. The story authentically captures both Iris' exhilaration when she's transfixed by a flame, and her pain and confusion as she forges a relationship with a man about whom she's never heard a good word. This is a quiet, reflective novel that blooms into a thrilling mystery, and its complex family dynamics will appeal to fans of Jenny Downham's Unbecoming (2016).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2017
Reserved teen Iris quietly suffers living with her unstable, gold-digging mother while nurturing dangerous pyromania. When they visit Iris's dying absentee father in rural England, Iris's mother angles for his valuable art collection, while Iris is bewildered to learn that the father she's been taught to hate has always loved her. This brief family drama is intense, but the short timeline leaves characters feeling half-formed.

(Copyright 2017 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)