Book Review: Amazon Burning by Victoria Griffith

Amazon Burning
Author: Victoria Griffith
Reading Level: New Adult
Genre: Murder Mystery
Released: October 1, 2014
Review Source: Astor + Blue Editions

When 22-year-old aspiring journalist, Emma Cohen, is forced to flee the comforts of her NYU student life, she maneuvers an internship from her father at his newspaper in Rio de Janeiro. There, Emma is immediately swept into a major news story--and a life-threatening situation--when a famous jungle environmentalist, Milton Silva, is mysteriously murdered.Emma must now enter the Amazon rainforest with her father to investigate; both awed by the enormity and beauty of the Amazon, and appalled by its reckless destruction. Not only will Emma have to brave the primal world of the Amazon, she must fight to survive the kidnappers, villains, corrupt activists, and indigenous tribes that lay in wait along the ever-twisting trail of the murder case. Stretched to the brink, it s up to Emma, her father and the dreamy news photographer, Jimmy, to unravel the mystery and live to tell the tale. Amazon Burning by Victoria Griffith is a spectacular debut Young Adult novel. Griffith's powerful rendering of the Amazon rainforest forms the perfect, wildly exotic backdrop for this extraordinary tale of a young urban woman coming of age in the midst of intense conflict.

I have to admit that this was a little hard for me to review. I really liked the idea and premise of the book and I wish I could say that the story caught me from the very beginning, but something just didn't quite fit for me.

I felt that some of the words were forced into it and I also felt like there were scenes that rushed a little and I would've liked to have stayed in them longer. Some of the chapters were cut off too short and I felt like I needed a little more to the story.

There were things that I did enjoy about the book. I had never read something where the setting took place in the Amazon. You can definitely tell that Griffith has spent some time there because it showed in her writing. I also liked the main character Emma because she reminded me of a friend of mine. She was easily likable and was complex.

Overall, I wasn't a huge fan of the book, but that doesn't mean you wont be. Again, I loved the setting and the character Emma, but the writing just wasn't there for me.