#PBwkendread Review: Fire & Flood (Fire & Flood #1) by Victoria Scott

Title: Fire & Flood
Author: Victoria Scott
Published: Feb. 25, 2014
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Pages: 305
Genre: YA
Review: Library book
Buy Links: Amazon, Amazon.uk 

Time is slipping away....

Tella Holloway is losing it. Her brother is sick, and when a dozen doctors can't determine what's wrong, her parents decide to move to Montana for the fresh air. She's lost her friends, her parents are driving her crazy, her brother is dying—and she's helpless to change anything.
Until she receives mysterious instructions on how to become a Contender in the Brimstone Bleed. It's an epic race across jungle, desert, ocean, and mountain that could win her the prize she desperately desires: the Cure for her brother's illness. But all the Contenders are after the Cure for people they love, and there's no guarantee that Tella (or any of them) will survive the race.
The jungle is terrifying, the clock is ticking, and Tella knows she can't trust the allies she makes. And one big question emerges: Why have so many fallen sick in the first place?

So my librarian recommended this book to me, and I am so glad she did. 

This book was AMAZING. You have a young girl named Tella who moved and left her city life behind. Yes how devastating. Her brother has a sickness and is dying what can she do? Well when she gets an invitation to become a Contender to receive a Cure to help her brother she does it. Though to be a contender in the Brimstone Bleed is something she has never seen or heard of before. You are in this race for three months THREE MONTHS that is a long time to be away from your family. So what happens in this race? Well you are thrown into certain environments and you have to be the first across the finish line you also get a Pandora of some sorts which have certain powers to help you. This race isn't just a simple run through and get to the finish line oh no, there is plenty of obstacles in the way.You have to find your own food, water and shelter, you have to adapt to the environments. That is what makes this book amazing in my eyes.  I thought that was wicked awesome, I loved how the author used the Pandora's to help the one that received them. As we read on we see Tella make the decision to join in a group of those also in the race will it help her or not? 

We proceed in the book and we learn via another player named Guy in the game who Tella is getting close to how all this came to be and why people are getting sick. It seems all those that are contenders are there for a reason and that being to help someone they care about.

I know this book is compared to the Hunger Games but I didn't get that while reading. The characters are rememberable even the side characters. Tella you can tell is finally coming into her skin of being strong and not following the pack mentality which is good. 

Fire and Flood is action packed, a bit of romance coming to life, and a good plot. I totally want to write more but I feel as though I will be giving so much away. You have to read this book and I believe it will be in my top ten books for the year. 

I am really ready to read book two to find out what can happen next. 

#PBwkendread 

Victoria Scott is the author of TITANS (Spring 2016), VIOLET GRENADE (Summer 2017), the FIRE & FLOOD duology, and the DANTE WALKER trilogy. She is published by Scholastic and Entangled Teen, and is represented by Sara Crowe. Two of her novels, SALT & STONE and TITANS, have received starred review, and FIRE & FLOOD was nominated as a YALSA Teens' Top 10 book, and was a Silver Falchion Award nominee. Victoria's novels have been bought and translated in eleven foreign markets. The author lives in Dallas, and loves hearing from readers.