Taking on Impulse: revised

Childhood Memories are the kind you will never forget. I have a video tape of me playing my guitar and singing at the top of my lungs different songs with my grandfather. I love watching that.
                      But what if your memories are bad? What if your past brought you to a teenage asylum? What if the pain was the only sour remedy or bad medicine that could actually cure? that's what they think. Their lives are long gone.  Ellen Hopkins does a good job in preparing this 'meal'. She blends hurt and craziness together. She adds a small amount of love. A tint of Hate. A teaspoon of butter, no never mind. But she adds 666 cups of 3 different ingredients: Tony, Conner, and Vanessa. They are the secret recipe.
                     Ellen Hopkins’s impulse is a book about their hard lives. There are three main characters. Tony has a hard life. The book talks about his thoughts, cuts, and memories, in his perspective. Conner is another character. He doesn't feel the need to show his emotions/depression, but he thinks that death is his only way out. And Vanessa on the other hand, She is hiding herself in a blade's reflection, blinding the truths from hurried pain. But there's no need handle a lot of that when you can take a staircase to hell. Ironic to us, isn't it?

            Everyday teenagers can relate to the book. I mean, who hasn’t thought they’ve gone crazy? That they’ve completely lost it? No one. I believe we all have felt lost, or alone, at one point. No matter how much people love you, no matter how many of them are around. And these are the basic emotion of these three characters. They think they are in “living hell”. We may not think so. Maybe we believe our problems cannot compare to theirs because they are completely irrelevant, or bigger or smaller.

But that’s not true. Our problems match our lives, and we all live differently. So we can’t compare them, no matter how “similar” they might sound. The kids in the book aren’t exactly, little kids anymore. They are older. Old enough to know right from wrong. And they know that what they are doing is wrong. But I am not one to judge them. I understand. The author’s purpose feels like it’s to express the essence of life. She makes pain look as the main theme, but from where I see it, it’s life.

To prove my thinking, I went back into the book. And I realize it took me a while to figure out the differences between the characters. It’s a little complicated to read sometimes because the character changes from one page to another. Whenever we get to the best parts of this continuous story, there is a change. But things are always interesting enough to keep you reading, leaving you with your tongue hanging, asking questions. Something else I noticed from Hopkins’s writing style is that she won’t say things out directly. You have to find the hidden meaning behind her words, play around with them until they make sense. It sounds like something you have to do with Shakespeare, but still with her. For example, I didn’t realize what she meant when tony talked about “being into” this new girl. I mean, we all assume he likes her right? But no. I misinterpreted what she meant. He doesn’t normally like girls, he’s gay. And things kinda got weird for me to keep reading from that point on. So I had to go back a few pages to actually understand what I had thought right and simple before. Another example comes in with Conner’s story. He tries to act like he can have everything, anything. But he hides so many secrets, and it seems so easy for him to keep them all bottled up. And since he believes everything he sees, he never actually discovers the truth. He thinks he can tell someone’s story just by looking at you for a minute. Like THAT would say anything about me. But he’s trying to seduce his doctors! And one of them… well, kind of gives in! It was confusing at first, because I a way she happened to know what was going on with him.

I find this quite ironic. In my opinion it is because of her body language,  what she says and wears. Here is the paragraph in the book:

“Her smile grows wider. Oh, I doubt that, Conner. Now, what did you decide about confiding secrets? My eyes lower to the V of her blouse. ‘you have to go first, but I guess I’m ready to play your game.’ Okay. When I was younger than you, but old enough to know right from wrong, I had sex with a teacher too. She knew?”

This was really clear, but I just didn’t know how to react. I kind of smirked at it. And then I thought of questions. And kept reading. Nothing. Next character. See? That’s how she makes us wait. She wants to create tension to keep us in focus. And that’s a strength in her writing. Yet, I can describe another example with the last but not least of the characters.

Vanessa’s cuts are deep. No, not really. But her emotions are. Her father is in war while she lives with her grandmother and her brother. And it seems like she can’t really live. It seems to her like she can’t make sense of her life. And so it’s confusing, because she feel a special connection with Tony, and Tony with her, even though he’s gay. This kind of throws of the story and sets a different tone for both characters. All though all 3 are at the same asylum (aspen Springs), they are different, and this kind of connects them all. This brings them into the story for real.

I really like her writing techniques. They seem simple, but it’s harder than it looks. And I tried to go further in with this book, and tried to capture the purity of what seems like a mistake. Sometimes it seems like there are fragments, but no. it’s just to throw you off. And I really enjoy that.

Impulse combines all times of emotions and themes, and different ways to picture this story. But it still is great no matter what.

We all have impulses. And ones that I consider being the biggest in this book is to:

Break free.

Let Go.

Consider.

Continue.

Life and Death.