Emma on Fire
Emma walks to the front of the class with her essay in hand. Everyone believes she is the smartest student in the boarding school. She starts to read her paper, and everyone is struck. She begins to describe how the body reacts when they are caught on fire, drawing the reader into the fiery chaos. Each character's reactions bring chaos to an already blazing story; I loved how everyone felt towards Emma, thinking she’s broken and how some are using her to their advantage.
After the last few years of Emma’s life drifting darker each day, she decides to want to burn herself alive for the good of the earth, bringing attention to how climate change is destroying our lives. Although I strongly believe in Emma’s views, I do not think that setting yourself on fire would change anything with the corruption of the world. However, this makes students alert to Emma’s intentions. Some mock or are disturbed by her plan.
We find how everyone in Emma’s life reacts to her protest: her best friends are concerned, her father, who is too distracted by his work to care, the teachers who are distraught and the online community fighting for their words to be heard. Emma sees how her views will change the world. The online community are listening to her, but at what cost. Becoming a trend that would eventually die out, for people to dance and lip-sync to her words.
Overall, the story is extremely bold and had me hooked all of the way through. The topics of mental health were handled respectfully, but I would have thought the people in her life would have done more in this day and age; they were all afraid, and they could have handled it better. Although the ending was great, the story just felt slightly medicore to me for others not to have done much when she was projecting her ideas.
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