Burned Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B001H071I6 | Format: EPUB
Burned Description
Raised in a stern, abusive Mormon household, a teenage girl starts to question her religion and struggles to find her destiny.
Her father is abusive, her mother is submissive, and her church looks the other way. Confused and angry, Pattyn Von Stratten acts out and is sent to live with an aunt on a Nevada ranch. She finds the love and acceptance she craves, with disturbing consequences.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 5 hours and 24 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: HighBridge Company
- Audible.com Release Date: September 15, 2008
- Language: English
- ASIN: B001H071I6
. . . 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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