Burning Blue by Paul Griffin

Burning Blue by Paul Griffin
Release Date: October 25, 2012
Publisher: Dial
Source: Bought
Goodreads Stars: 3
Rating: Enjoyable

How far would you go for love, beauty, and jealousy?

When Nicole Castro, the most beautiful girl in her wealthy New Jersey high school, is splashed with acid on the left side of her perfect face, the whole world takes notice. But quiet loner Jay Nazarro does more than that--he decides to find out who did it. Jay understands how it feels to be treated like a freak, and he also has a secret: He's a brilliant hacker. But the deeper he digs, the more danger he's in--and the more he falls for Nicole. Too bad everyone is turning into a suspect, including Nicole herself.

Award-winning author Paul Griffin has written a high-stakes, soulful mystery about the meaning--and dangers--of love and beauty. - Goodreads

I was quite disappointed with Burning Blue. Having seen such stories in the news, I was really interested in reading about someone who gets acid thrown at their face. Not because I'm a total psycho, but because I wanted to see how it affected the victim's life and thought process. I really wanted to get into Nicole's head, perhaps see her try to get back into school but... it just didn't happen. I would have liked to see more of Nicole and exactly how all this was affecting her, rather than the focus on Jay's hacking and investigating.

Jay, the main character, was kinda dull. I found that he bragged a lot, and didn't do much else. His hacking was interesting, not that we really learnt how he could do it, and I like that kind of spy/secret agent-like aspect. I can't comment on the credibility of it all, though, because I can barely use HTML, let alone hack into someone's private email from a mobile phone. 

Also, I just wanted to mention that Jay is epileptic, and this is not something I see a lot of in YA. It was a nice touch.

The mystery of who threw the acid was interesting. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it had taken a backseat to Nicole. That said, I really liked trying to figure out who threw the acid in Nicole's face. I had several suspects, and I was mostly wrong about a lot of them. I actually started suspecting Jay at one point because he was so weird. Oops.

Overall, Burning Blue was a pretty average read. I wasn't ever bored, but I didn't find it thrilling either.