Title: Burned
Author: Ellen Hopkins
Format: Paperback
Release Date: March 28th, 2006
Publisher: Margaret McElderry
Source: Amazon.com
Pages In This Edition: 532
Rating: 3/5 Stars

On the Cover:


Beyond the Cover:

Summary from Goodreads:

"Raised in a religious -- yet abusive -- family, Pattyn Von Stratten starts asking questions -- about God, a woman's role, sex, love. She experiences the first stirrings of passion, but when her father catches her in a compromising position, events spiral out of control. Pattyn is sent to live with an aunt in the wilds of Nevada to find salvation and redemption. What she finds instead is love and acceptance -- until she realizes that her old demons will not let her go."


Review:


I don't really know what to say about this one. I guess I could start out by saying I LOVE ELLEN HOPKINS. I think she is an awesome person and I love most of her other books. (Identical is my favorite.) But this one didn't really do much for me.


Her verse is awesome as always. The words seem to flow off the page and the way the shapes and rhythms add to the story-line didn't disappoint. The characters didn't really disappoint either, though I thought sometimes that Pattyn missed obvious conclusions to her problems, I guess her upbringing made up for some of that. Plus she really was a like-able character that had me rooting for her.


The main issue I had with this one was  the ending; the beginning and the in between were  pretty good. Maybe not as fast paced as I would have liked, but full of romance and suspense enough to keep me reading. The ending...was lacking. I don't want to say much because I don't want to give it away, but I just can't believe how....I guess the word I could use here is abrupt. And just sucky. :/ I'm sorry to say it kind of ruined the book for me. The middle was good enough to make up for the end somewhat, but not completely. 


So I would say if you like verse you may want to give it a try (maybe you'll like the ending more), but if you really want a good verse novel, I would read Identical or Impulse any day.


--Alexis