I’ve heard a lot of great things about Lish McBride. Her first book, Hold Me Closer Necromancer, won the Morris Award in 2011, and practically every librarian acquaintance I have raves about her writing (in particular her sense of humor). So naturally, when Firebug showed up at my door, I knew I’d have to give it a shot.

Ava is a firebug, meaning she can start fires with her mind. Cool, right? (When I was a teen I would have thought this was so freaking badass. Now it would terrify me.) It’s actually not that awesome for Ava, since she sometimes has a hard time controlling the power. What’s even less cool is that it brought her to the attention of the Coterie, a mafia-type organization (teens seem to be getting involved with the mob in all sorts of ways in YA lately) that forcibly recruits teens like Ava to work for them – or else.

So Ava is under the thumb of the Coterie, led by an evil vampire named Venus. She doesn’t just do petty criminal acts for them; she’s an assassin, and she tries not to think too hard about the people she kills, who are usually not very nice anyway. But then Venus tells her that she has to kill a friend. For no apparent reason. And that’s where Ava draws the line, despite the fact that it means Venus will be after her, despite the fact that it puts her friends in danger, despite the fact that it’s pretty much a death sentence.

Except if it were, we wouldn’t have much of a story. And Ava does have allies – the two boys who work with her in the Coterie who have their own odd powers (one is a werefox and the other is half-dryad), her pseudo-father figure, and a few others who are intent upon bringing Venus down. So perhaps Ava’s refusal isn’t a lost cause after all. Perhaps she and her friends can actually topple the Coterie, ending its threat against herself and other magical beings forever.

I really wanted to like Firebug more than I did. McBride’s writing is very good, as I hoped it would be. There’s a lot of fun repartee between Ava and the other characters. She has a sharp tongue and employs it against friends and enemies alike. Her two closest friends – Ezra the werefox and Lock the half-dryad – were well-drawn and their friendship with Ava was deep and believable. There’s a smattering of romance, too, plus a betrayal that really does tug on the heartstrings, even if you see it coming (I saw it coming and hoped up until the end that I was wrong). And it’s funny, as promised.

So why did I merely like it instead of love it? I wanted more from the plot. Despite how well-developed the characters and their relationships were, the storyline was still very basic. I felt like I had read this story a dozen times before (group of teens with powers take on The Man who has exploited them for years), and no amount of wisecracks would make it fresh for me. There’s a big reveal at the end that was telegraphed too strongly, removing a lot of the tension. The storyline just wasn’t terribly creative.

But hey, I’ve read a heck of a lot of teen fantasy, more of it than most teens (simply because I haven’t been a teen in almost 10 years). I love to champion the stuff that breaks new ground, but there’s definitely space for books that tread the same ground and do it well. This should appeal to teens who like contemporary/urban fantasy and don’t yet feel like they’ve exhausted all the genre has to offer. And there’s something comforting in a familiar story peopled with characters who feel like friends.

Review copy received from the publisher. Firebug is available today!