Burned Author: Ellen Hopkins | Language: English | ISBN:
B001MCBEQ4 | Format: PDF
Burned Description
I do know things really began to spin out of control after my first sex dream. It all started with a dream. Nothing exceptional, just a typical fantasy about a boy, the kind of dream that most teen girls experience. But Pattyn Von Stratten is not like most teen girls. Raised in a religious -- yet abusive -- family, a simple dream may not be exactly a sin, but it could be the first step toward hell and eternal damnation.
This dream is a first step for Pattyn. But is it to hell or to a better life? For the first time Pattyn starts asking questions. Questions seemingly without answers -- about God, a woman's role, sex, love -- mostly love. What is it? Where is it? Will she ever experience it? Is she deserving of it?
It's with a real boy that Pattyn gets into real trouble. After Pattyn's father catches her in a compromising position, events spiral out of control until Pattyn ends up suspended from school and sent to live with an aunt she doesn't know.
Pattyn is supposed to find salvation and redemption during her exile to the wilds of rural Nevada. Yet what she finds instead is love and acceptance. And for the first time she feels worthy of both -- until she realizes her old demons will not let her go. Pattyn begins down a path that will lead her to a hell -- a hell that may not be the one she learned about in sacrament meetings, but it is hell all the same.
In this riveting and masterful novel told in verse, Ellen Hopkins takes readers on an emotional roller-coaster ride. From the highs of true love to the lows of abuse, Pattyn's story will have readers engrossed until the very last word.
- File Size: 1059 KB
- Print Length: 560 pages
- Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books; Reissue edition (June 20, 2008)
- Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
- Language: English
- ASIN: B001MCBEQ4
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,813 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
. . . it proved to be the best laugh I've had in a while. I nearly peed myself while reading about the inaccuracies. First, let me make you a list:
1)Yes, I am Mormon.
2)Yes, I acknowledge that abuse happens in every religion and that there are also extremists in every religion.
3)This book had EXTRAORDINARY potential.
That being said, let me continue. I myself came from an abusive Mormon family. It was awful. Plain and simple. Imagine my excitement when I picked up this book at Borders and read the description. "Finally!" I thought. "A story just for me." Similar to Pattyn, I am the oldest of six girls. This book seemed like a dream come true, and I was ready to dive in.
The giggles began on the page referencing Harry Potter, as a world where "no upstanding Mormon should go." Oh man, I nearly lost it. I believe that I am an upstanding Mormon, and yet I do read Harry Potter. My sisters listen to the tapes every night before they go to bed. I also think that Ron Weasley is hot as heck.
Next was the quote about how Mormons don't really place much emphasis on Jesus Christ. Well, actually, he's the center of our religion! Not wanting to make people think I'm trying to convert them, I'll stop there. ;) Because everyone knows we just want to convert people.
Next was the complete ignoral of the abuse happening in Pattyn's family. I'm sorry, but at church, everyone knows everything about everyone. Sad to say this, but Mormons gossip a lot. A lot a lot. Growing up, I couldn't even ditch a class without someone seeing me at the mall and calling my mom. Quite annoying, but it is what it is. So Pattyn's mom going to church with sunglasses and her father's constant drinking? Nope. Not believable. Somebody would have said something.
To start off, I think Ellen Hopkins has a wonderful style. I like what she does with words, her concretes, her descriptions. She has flare. And this is one of the edgiest and most original of the verse novels I have thus far read. On the downside this story is making me literally sick to my stomach.
Please understand that I don't have a problem with the theme of struggling with ones faith. When I first read the blurb about the main character going through a crisis of faith, I was more intent on reading this, not less. Then, as I began reading, I realized there was no crisis of faith, no case where the main character has to struggle with pros and cons, goods and bads, or sacrifice one thing for another. Instead the whole thing is very cut and dry. The protagonist's family is brainwashed by a religion that:
1. Believes a woman's whole purpose in life is to pop out babies.
2. Discourages their believers from reading J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolken.
3. Discourages women from learning or getting any kind of education beyond high school.
4. Uses the term "Love and obey" as instruction for how wives view their husbands.
5. Teaches its youth that it's better for a girl to die than lose her virginity in a rape.
6. Tolerates men in leadership positions who look the other way when they know a husband is beating a wife and encourages the parents to use a belt when their kids misbehave.
7. Has no program to help women and children in abusive homes, but prefers to call victims liars rather than deal with any real problems.
8. Instills in their youth such a rigorous guilt complex that girls feel guilty just for dreaming about boys kissing them.
9.
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