Romy's Reviews > House Fires

I wanted to like this book so badly, I really did. :(

I hate giving books a low review because I can only imagine how heartbroken I would be if I wrote my own book, went on Goodreads, and saw that someone didn't like it... alas, I must be true to my heart. Connor, I love you and I am sorry.

I have followed Connor Franta for as long as I can remember and loved his first two books. His second, Note to Self, was an impactful book to me in my sophomore year of high school, and I actually adapted several chapters from it and performed them at Speech and Debate competitions. They spoke to me deeply and I carried the book around with me for weeks after finishing it, returning to my tabbed pages at random times and recommending it to anyone who would listen.

When House Fires was released in October of 2021, I bought it immediately but told myself I would wait to read it until I was at a critical juncture in my life. It sat on my shelf until last week, my final week of high school. I finally picked it up, ready for my world to be rocked as it was with Note to Self... but I was so very disappointed.

To be fair, this book is physically one of the most beautiful books I own. The photographs taken by Connor sprinkled throughout the book are breathtaking, but the writing is really lacking. It feels like a very angsty diary, with SO many similes and metaphors per page I genuinely became annoyed. He addresses deep topics, but in a way that was not profound or mature. Sometimes it's nice to look at such complicated issues in a simple way, but this just didn't do it for me.

If Connor releases more books, I'll still certainly read them. I also plan on rereading Note to Self to see how my perception of it has changed over the years. But I was sad that this book wasn't enjoyable to me. :(