Burned by Ellen Hopkins, published by Simon Pulse.
I was worried that this novel would remind me too much of Glass, and while the format was similar the storyline was completely different. This book was disturbing in a completely new way. The narrator, Pattyn Von Stratten, is a Mormon teenage girl who is struggling with her religious view. She isn't sure if she believes everything the church says anymore. She finds contradictions in her every-day life, mostly from her abusive father, and questions why she has deep desires if they are sinful. I felt bad that normal things, like coffee, were temptations for her.
The main problem occurs when she goes too far with a boy she likes at school. She learns something about the students in her class, mainly that they can't be trusted and she is further removed from the social stratosphere than she previously believed, that she has no one else to turn to, and that she is surprising even herself with the limits she starts to test. What would be typical for any American teenage girl is a life-altering decision for Pattyn. It will make girls across America re-evaluate their own decisions, their faith, and feel connected at last to a girl who believes in "forever love."
It's a beautiful tale, even if the format is less than unique and not as gripping as Glass' dance with the monster. I liked the poem form even less in this novel because it didn't have enough idiosyncratic details. There weren't any particular lines that stuck out to me or that sang their way to my heart. I appreciated the relationship between Pattyn and the second boy she falls for, it was moving and heat-warming and everything you expect a first love to be. However, it could have been painted just as beautifully, if not more, in prose. Perhaps it's just me, but I feel that 500 pages of poetry is too much. It begs to be read like a novel and the artistic value becomes lost in the plot and characters. There weren't any specific poems that stood out to me, thus disappointing me in the ability of Hopkins' craft. She really impressed me in Glass and unfortunately that quality didn't shine through in Burned.
From an objective standpoint, the ending to this novel was probably brilliant. It suggested the chaos that high school drama and gossip can start. It pointed the finger at the effect of domestic abuse on America's teens. It screamed messages about love and faith, what to do when you have nothing left, and how control is a fleeting thing. From a personal standpoint, I hated it. I want happily ever afters. If I wanted sad endings I would read the newspaper, I read fiction to bring some hope into my life, to think about true love and fairy tales and "what ifs." I want to believe there's something more to this life than just wake-up-go-to-work-cook-dinner-go-to-bed. And while the faith that Pattyn eventually discovers may not be in God, the love she nurtures could be his byproduct, and therefore it made me want it to last forever. After all "forever love" doesn't die.
