Marisol’s mom died following a car accident that happened after she and Marisol had a huge fight. Marisol, 16, blames herself and has been out of control ever since, fixated on her failures as a daughter, especially how she and her mom (Filipina) always fought and the fact that she didn’t say goodbye to her mom as she lay dying at the hospital. Marisol's been drinking heavily and getting into trouble at school, and she had sex with her (ex) best friend’s boyfriend. Her dad (white) is at his wit’s end, but he’s also unwilling to engage with his own feelings and memories, so that the silence around the grief in their home is all-consuming. This exploration of grief, guilt, friendship, and family starts with Marisol relentlessly angry and chronicles her slow catharsis. Relief comes in numerous ways and for many reasons: concern for her younger brother, Bernie, who’s been skipping school; time spent with new friends, even as she continues to mourn the lost bond with her former best friend and the Filipina heritage they shared; and healing through memory and ritual on the Day of the Dead, an observance that she learns is also part of Filipino culture. The transformation lets other, happier memories in—memories of times when Marisol and her mom were not at odds. For Marisol, taking control also means demanding that her dad do better in a story that ends with a sense hope and a new beginning. (Age 14 and older)

Packed with voice, Shannon C.F. Rogers' I'd Rather Burn than Bloom is a powerful YA novel about a Filipina-American teen who tries to figure out who she really is in the wake of her mother's death.

Some girls call their mother their best friend. Marisol Martin? She could never relate. She and her mom were forever locked in an argument with no beginning and no end. Clothes, church, boys, no matter the topic, Marisol always felt like there was an unbridgeable gap between them that they were perpetually shouting across, one that she longed to close.

But when her mother dies suddenly, Marisol is left with no one to fight against, haunted by all the things that she both said and didn’t say. Her dad seems completely lost, and worse, baffled by Marisol's attempts to connect with her mother's memory through her Filipino culture. Her brother Bernie is retreating further and further into himself. And when Marisol sleeps with her best friend's boyfriend - and then punches said best friend in the face - she's left alone, with nothing but a burning anger, and nowhere for it to go.

And Marisol is determined to stay angry, after all, there’s a lot to be angry about– her father, her mother, the world. But as a new friendship begins to develop with someone who just might understand, Marisol reluctantly starts to open up to her, and to the possibility there’s something else on the other side of that anger– something more to who she is, and who she could be.