After a tragic incident in her past, Jenny Breland begins to find comfort in starting fires. But with an arson investigation in her hometown and suspicions on the rise, she moves to a small town in New Mexico with her father in hopes of a fresh start. Soon, it’s clear that someone knows of Jenny’s fiery past, and with trouble on the horizon, Jenny has to figure out how to face her past before it’s too late. 

The beginning of the book does a good job of highlighting the tension in Jenny’s family caused by her tendency to start fires and the arson investigation going on in her hometown. It also emphasizes her guilt over unspecified past events, which are slowly revealed through the course of the book. 

Jenny’s turbulent and complicated past is slowly revealed over the course of the novel, and it makes her come across as a real person with flaws and feelings. It also explains her various actions during the novel without attempting to glorify them, which was something I appreciated. 

The ending felt unsatisfying in my opinion, as it failed to tie up many remaining unanswered questions about the events that happened at the end of the novel. The book felt like it ended abruptly and was cut short at a critical point in the story, and that hurts my overall impression of the book.

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys books with a mixture of psychological fiction and mystery. 

Overall, while Watch You Burn was a good portrayal of the effects that guilt can have on a person, I feel like the storyline could have been written better. While I felt that Jenny was very well written as a character, the book’s ending was unsatisfying and the plot feels quite messy.