Thought Train to Pusan

Written as a series of short, connecting poems, the young-adult novel Burned tells the tale of a young girl in a strictly religious and abusive household who is sent away for the summer after her father finds her in a compromising position. A few years back, I read another work by Ellen Hopkins, written in a similar style, called Impulse , and absolutely loved it. But did I love this one? Not as such. While Burned does bring up some interesting questions regarding faith and spirituality in a person, there were too many problems that I found in this novel that I just couldn’t get around, many of which involved that subject of religion which the novel was trying to address in the first place. But more on that in a minute: The story of Burned focuses on 16 year-old Pattyn, the oldest of 7 daughters, all raised to be Mormon by an alcoholic, ex-army father, and detached mother who is often beaten by her husband. As Pattyn is growing up, she is finding herself to be questioning a wo...