What We’re Reading

Impulse | Ellen Hopkins

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I’ve long been a fan of novels written in poems, and this was no exception. Following the stories of three teens, hospitalized after their various suicide attempts, it isn’t always the easiest book to read.

Vanessa is a cutter, and was hospitalized after her brother came home to find her bleeding to death in the bathroom. Connor was the perfect kid, aside from his affair, and his incident with the gun. Tony’s life was different from the outset. He spent years in Juvenile Detention, and then some on the streets. After the loss of the closest friend he ever had, he wasn’t sure he could go on anymore.

Throughout the story, Vanessa, Tony and Connor’s stories intertwine, weaving in and out of one another. Tony and Vanessa form a bond which will likely last the rest of the their lives, and which is instrumental to their healing process. Connor, left feeling only he has nowhere to turn, has the hardest time of all. With seemingly the best life, based on appearances, he is a hard lesson in things are not always what they seem.

Any Hopkins fan will definitely appreciate Impulse, as would any poetry lover, or anyone who’s found themselves in a similar situation to its main characters.

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It’s Kind of a Funny Story | Ned Vizzini

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Craig Gilner has found himself in an awkward place. After achieving his main goal of getting into Executive Pre-Professional High School, he no longer knows what to do with himself. School isn’t what he expected, his friends seem to populate a different world than he does, and nothing seems to interest him. Concluding he’s depressed, he begins a winding road to recovery, at first hopping from therapist to therapist, before finally happening upon one he likes.

Still, things seem unmanageable. At wits end, Craig eventually starts contemplating a flying leap off the Brooklyn Bridge. Luckily, he calls a suicide hotline instead. Living just a few blocks down from a Hospital, he follows the advice of the counselor on the line and walks down to the ER.

Through good intentions and a minor mis-comphrehension, Craig checks himself in, and becomes a Psychiatric Hospital Patient. He’s disinclined to stay, but they promptly show him the admittance sheet he had his mother sign only minutes before, and he settles down to make the best of it.

Along the way he learns quite a bit about himself, other people, and his so-called friends. He forms relationships, falls back into art, which he lost somewhere along the road of growing up. It takes him some time to realize it, even though it’s right in front of his face, but eventually he comes to understand that a large part of the issue is he hasn’t been on the road he really wanted.

While the subject is certainly not to be taken lightly, it is indeed, as it says, kind of a funny story.

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