Akari, a senior in high school, is completely fixated on Maza Maza member and "oshi" Masaki Ueno. She maintains a blog exclusively for him and can be found scrolling endlessly for details about his life and career. Akari desperately tries to analyse and comprehend him, hoping to one day view the world through his eyes. Despite the fact that she has never met him, she feels as though he is her saviour, her support system, and the one person she cannot live without. Social media erupts when rumours about her idol abusing a female fan appear. Akari starts looking into the controversy right away and posts every information to her site, including Masaki's denials and pleas to his supporters, attracting a large number of interested readers. But the organized, knowledgeable persona Akari presents online is totally different from the socially awkward, unfocused teenager she is in real life. As Masaki's situation spirals, his troubles threaten to tear apart her life too. Instead of finding a way to break free to save herself, Akari becomes even more fanatical about Masaki, still believing her idol is the only person who understands her. A blistering novel of fame, disconnection, obsession, and disillusion by a young writer not much older than the novel?s heroine, Idol, Burning shines a white-hot spotlight on fandom and ?stan? culture, the money-making schemes of the pop idol industry, the seductive power of social media, and the powerful emotional void that opens when an idol falls from grace, only to become a real?and very flawed?person.