-
Access Our
Most Anticipated
Books of 2025!
by Shana Youngdahl
The story of a girl struggling to figure out her estranged brother, a new love, and her own life just as wildfires beset her small California town—by the acclaimed author of As Many Nows as I Can Get, herself a native of Paradise, California, destroyed in the 2018 Camp Fire.
Seventeen-year-old Caprice wants to piece her family back together now that her older brother has returned home, even as she resents that he ever broke them apart. Just as she starts to get a new footing—falling in love for the first time, uncertainly mending her traumatized relationship with her brother, completing the app that will win her a college scholarship and a job in tech—wildfires strike Sierra, her small California town, forcing her to reckon with a future that is impossible to predict. A love story of many kinds and a reflection of the terrifying, heartbreaking events of Paradise, California, where the author grew up, this is a tale that looks at what is lost and discovers what remains, and how a family can be nearly destroyed again and again, and still survive.
"Smart and moving; a beautiful tribute to those living with the threat of wildfires." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Youngdahl's eloquent sophomore work celebrates love, loss, family, and the meaning of home. [She] based Sierra on her hometown of Paradise, California, and her narrative goes straight to the heart in lucid, well-crafted sentences. Caprice is complexly developed: stubborn but empathetic, loyal, and giving, and she is surrounded by a well-drawn, realistic group of characters. Full of heart and sure to have mass appeal." —Booklist (starred review)
"A Catalog of Burnt Objects assures us, in the most heart-wrenching and lyrical terms, that even as our world burns in ways both figurative and literal, love and hope will survive the dark night and rise from the ashes." —Jeff Zentner, award-winning author of In The Wild Light
"This is a truly tender novel on many levels—a deeply moving story about loss, tragedy, and mistakes, and how these things can imprint in our bodies and in the ways we try to find ourselves. Through Caprice's eyes, we also get to know the people, vibrancy, and heart of the town of Sierra. You can't help but fall in love with the world inside this book." —Helena Fox, award-winning author of How It Feels to Float
"A Catalog of Burnt Objects meets the destruction of our planet and our lives head on in a thoughtful, hopeful tight-rope walk between first loss and first love. The peril of climate change has never been made so personal to the generation now coming of age as their world burns, and as we come together to rethink and rebuild." —Daisy Garrison, acclaimed author of Six More Months of June
This information about A Catalog of Burnt Objects was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Shana Youngdahl is a poet and author who teaches writing at Lindenwood University. One of her greatest joys is helping people embrace the stories they need to tell. She is the author of the acclaimed novel, As Many Nows as I Can Get. Shana lives with her husband, two daughters, and two cats in Missouri.
The library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in history
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
