‘With the Fire on High’// Audiobook REVIEW

Elizabeth Acevedo deserves all of the awards for narrating With the Fire on High! Read my review of the audiobook down below.

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With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
Published by Hardie Grant Publishing on June 1, 2019
Genres: Young Adult, Family, General, Social Themes, Adolescence
Pages: 400

From New York Times bestselling author of POET X comes a story of a girl with talent, pride and a little bit of magic that keeps her fire burning bright.

Ever since she got pregnant during freshman year, Emoni Santiago’s life has been about making the tough decisions, doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela. The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen. There, she lets her hands tell her what to cook, listening to her intuition and adding a little something magical every time, turning her food into straight-up goodness. 

Even though she’s always dreamed of working in a kitchen after she graduates, Emoni knows that it’s not worth her time to pursue the impossible. But then an opportunity presents itself to not only enrol in a culinary arts class in her high school, but also to travel abroad to Spain for an immersion program. Emoni knows that her decisions post high school have to be practical ones, but despite the rules she’s made for her life — and everyone else’s rules that she refuses to play by — once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free. 

Here we go again with me wondering how to describe how I feel about this book without spoiling…

With the Fire on High – Characters/Setting

Emoni’s journey as a single teen mother was both hard and inspiring to listen to on audiobook. She has these dreams of becoming a chef and her love for cooking, but she’s also tied in conflict. She has to take care of her 3-year-old daughter Emma, whom she adoringly calls “Baby Girl”. Emoni is also tied to her grandmother, who provides both for her and Emma as Emoni finishes high school. I could feel Emoni’s frustrations with being a teen mother, while dealing with high school dramas, like boys and college applications, and dead-end jobs to make ends meet. We also get to meet Tyrone, Emma’s father and Emoni’s former flame. There isn’t much to go on with him, other than picking up Emma on the weekends for visitations, but on the other hand, hearing Emoni’s memories of the two teens together brought a bittersweet feeling.

Relationships and Friendships

Emoni also goes through a bit of a budding romance with new student, Malachi, who’s just the cutest little thing! He’s so cute and funny and his nickname for Emoni — Santi, a play on her last name — was adorable. Emoni works hard to not fall for him, because ever since Tyrone, she won’t let anyone else into her heart like that. And for awhile, Malachi and Emoni’s slow burn from friendship to dating was sweet and refreshing. At first, I’d thought he’d be another Tyrone, but Malachi was sweet and didn’t judge Emoni for being a teen mom.

Emoni’s relationship with her abuela (grandmother) was one of the best moments of the entire book for me. Abuela reminded me so much of my own mother, who is a proud grandmother of my three nieces. She’s someone with a passionate and firery personality, who would fight tooth and nail for her grandkids. Abuela was the same way for both Emoni and Emma, fight whoever came their way, especially Emoni because she was judged so poorly for being a teen mom at 15. However, towards the end, abuela described and explained how she’d been missing out on her golden years because she always had to be the grandmother/great-grandmother taking care of everyone, and all I’ll say is her storyline wraps up nicely, personally. I just loved her!

Emoni’s best friend Angelica was another highlight for me. She was so sassy and hilarious counterpart to Emoni’s serious,no-nonsense attitude. She’s also a lesbian, so that’s LGBT representation right there.

Daddy Issues

We see Emoni’s relationship with her father, additionally. As someone who also has an emotionally close but physically distant relationship with my own father, I related to this side of the story quite heavily. I sensed the conflict of Emoni’s emotions between hurt and anger for her father’s departure from her family, and wondering what her mother would have been like had she not passed after childbirth. They wore heavily on my heart, and I felt a ton of sympathy fer her. She also emails her aunt Sara, her father’s sister (or maybe her mother’s sister?), which those were sweet to listen to.

With the Fire on High – Writing Style/Narration

Elizabeth Acevedo’s writing was incredible, as always. She narrated the audiobook, just like she did with her first book, The Poet X (which I still have to finish!), and her voice suited well for her own work. I can’t imagine anyone else narrating her own characters the way she can. When authors narrate their own work, it shows how passionate they are about their craft, in their own words. I also loved her descriptions of Emoni’s cooking; the smoke and fire of the stove; tasting the spices and herbs; hearing the oven turn on and off….it makes me hungry!

Comment below! Have you read With the Fire on High? Did you like it?

Thanks for reading!