Burned [Hardcover]

Ellen Hopkins (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 28, 2006

I do know things really began to spin out of control after my first sex dream.

It all started with a dream. Nothing exceptional, just a typical fantasy about a boy, the kind of dream that most teen girls experience. But Pattyn Von Stratten is not like most teen girls. Raised in a religious -- yet abusive -- family, a simple dream may not be exactly a sin, but it could be the first step toward hell and eternal damnation.

This dream is a first step for Pattyn. But is it to hell or to a better life? For the first time Pattyn starts asking questions. Questions seemingly without answers -- about God, a woman's role, sex, love -- mostly love. What is it? Where is it? Will she ever experience it? Is she deserving of it?

It's with a real boy that Pattyn gets into real trouble. After Pattyn's father catches her in a compromising position, events spiral out of control until Pattyn ends up suspended from school and sent to live with an aunt she doesn't know.

Pattyn is supposed to find salvation and redemption during her exile to the wilds of rural Nevada. Yet what she finds instead is love and acceptance. And for the first time she feels worthy of both -- until she realizes her old demons will not let her go. Pattyn begins down a path that will lead her to a hell -- a hell that may not be the one she learned about in sacrament meetings, but it is hell all the same.

In this riveting and masterful novel told in verse, Ellen Hopkins takes readers on an emotional roller-coaster ride. From the highs of true love to the lows of abuse, Pattyn's story will have readers engrossed until the very last word.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up–Once again the author of Crank (S & S, 2004) has masterfully used verse to re-create the yearnings and emotions of a teenage girl trapped in tragic circumstances. Poems in varied formats captivate readers as they describe a teen's immobilizing fear of her abusive father, disgust with a church hierarchy that looks the other way, hope that new relationships can counteract despair, joy in the awakening of romance, and sorrow when demons ultimately prevail. Pattyn Von Stratten is the eldest of eight sisters in a stern Mormon household where women are relegated to servitude and silence. She has a glimpse of normal teenage life when Derek takes an interest in her, but her father stalks them in the desert and frightens him away. Unable to stifle her rage, Pattyn acts out as never before and is suspended from school. Sent to live with an aunt on a remote Nevada ranch, she meets Ethan and discovers forever love. Woven into the story of a teen's struggle to find her destiny is the story of her aunt's barrenness following government mismanagement of atomic testing and protests over nuclear waste disposal. Readers will become immersed in Pattyn's innermost thoughts as long-held secrets are revealed, her father's beatings take a toll on her mother and sister, and Pattyn surrenders to Ethan's love with predictable and disturbing consequences. Writing for mature teens, Hopkins creates compelling characters in horrific situations.–Kathy Lehman, Thomas Dale High School Library, Chester, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 9-12. Full of anger at her father, an alcoholic who abuses her mother, Pattyn begins to question her Mormon religion and her preordained, subservient role within it. She is confused by her mother's acceptance of the brutal abuse, and although she is furious at and terrified of her father, she still longs for his love and approval. As the consequences of her anger become more dramatic, her parents send her to spend the summer with her aunt on a Nevada ranch. There she finds the love and acceptance she craves, both from her aunt and from a college-age neighbor, Ethan. Told in elegant free verse, Burned envelopes the reader in Pattyn's highs and lows, her gradual opening to love, and her bouts of rage, confusion, and doubt. It exposes the mind of the abused, but regrettably offers no viable plan to deal with the abuser, a reality perhaps, but a plot element that may raise eyebrows in the adult community. Still, this will easily find rapid-fire circulation among its YA audience. A troubling but beautifully written novel. Frances Bradburn
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books (March 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416903542
• ISBN-13: 978-1416903543
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (165 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #246,012 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was adopted at birth and raised by a great, loving older couple. I grew up in Palm Springs CA, although we summered in Napa and Lake Tahoe, to avoid those 120 degree summers. After my adopted parents died, I did find my birth mother, who lives in Michigan with my half sister.

I studied journalism in college, but left school to marry, raise kids and start my own business--a video store, before the mega-chains were out there. After a divorce, I met my current husband and we moved to Tahoe to become ski bums and otherwise try to find our dreams. At that time, I went to work for a small alternative press, writing stories and eventually editing.

When we moved down the mountain to the Reno area, I started writing nonfiction books, many of which you can see here. The rest are viewable on my personal website. I also continued to freelance articles for newspapers and magazines.

All that has changed, with the publication of my novel, CRANK, which has led to a valued career writing YA novels in verse, all of which explore the more difficult situations young adults often find themselves in. Will I ever write one in prose? No doubt! But, for the moment, writing novels in verse fulfills two needs: writing poetry and writing fiction. The combination is so interesting!

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#75 in Books > Teens

#75 in Books > Teens

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 56 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Ellen writes my world... June 20, 2006

By JHenzo

Format:Hardcover

I received a copy of BURNED in the mail from my cousin yesterday & couldn't put it down. I finished it all last night & was completely smitten! My cousin & I were both reared Mormon, & thus identified intensely with the story. We both come from dysfunctional families, which often made me feel like Hopkins had been peeking through my curtains to obtain her material for BURNED. I am now almost 30 & think this book is long overdue. Hopkins portrayal of a battered young girl in a devoutly religious (& more specifically, Mormon) family is dead on the mark. If only I had the clarity of Pattyn when I was a teen. (As conflicted & confused as Pattyn often is, she is wise beyond her years. My adolescence was marked with a blur of foggy madness...a fury of anger, loneliness, & confusion.) I have since made peace with my past & have left the Mormon church. Yet all the years and miles later, reading BURNED was like going home.

33 of 42 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Misleading June 30, 2011

By A. Felsted

Format:Paperback

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.... Seems to perpetuate the kind of beliefs that allow the parents of this protagonist to not let her drive when she turns 16 because they think it will be better if she waits until her husband can teach her.

Um, does this sound ludicrous to you? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are religions like that. Okay fine, there are cults like that. But dude, what's there to struggle against here? What benefit could there possibly be for the protagonist to stay in this oppressive, brain washing, abusive religion? Are they giving her security, love, a warm home?

No, nothing. The protagonist doesn't believe a bit of it from the get go. So where is the struggle? And you can just imagine what a shock it is for me every time Ms. Hopkins calls this evil, oppressive, judgmental, emotionally abusive religion Mormonism, the religion I've grown up with my entire life. A religion which:

1. Tells couples that how many children they have is a personal decision.
2. Has Stephenie Meyer, Allie Condie, and Becca Fitzpatrick among their ranks.
3. Encourages women to continually learn and in particular to get college educations.
4. Has yet to use the term "love and obey" for a husband/wife relationship in any ceremonies or religious services I've attended.
5. Teaches young women that they are daughters of God, and that God loves them no matter what happens to them.
6. Preaches against violence and excommunicates those involved in abusive behaviors.
7. Takes abuse so seriously that you can download a 70 page 12 step program book from the LDS church's family services page for free. Never mind that they employ social workers and psychologists to deal with the kinds of family problems in this book.
8. Teaches that sex is ordained of God, beautiful, something to be celebrated after marriage. I didn't have any LDS friends growing up who felt having a "sex" dream broke the law of chastity.
9. The last one is just too ludicrous to even try and counter. Having your husband teach you to drive. Are you flippin' kidding me?

I grant the author that Mormonism is a patriarchal religion that marginalizes women by excluding them from holding the priesthood, by telling them that there's nothing more important than to be a wife of a righteous priesthood holder, and by excluding them from holding high offices like Bishop, Stake President, and General Authority, but I still think this particular representation of Mormonism is extreme and does more harm than good.

Growing up in the east coast with a lot of non-Mormons, I can tell you that most people are very respectful of religions not their own, and that I too was reared to be respectful.

But even in my very diverse high school, there were those who went out of their way to dismiss anything I had to say due to misrepresentations they had read, movies their pastors had shown them, or sermons they'd heard decrying Mormonism.

People were taught to fear us.

I would assert that extreme portrayals such as this one will only make life harder for high school students who've grown up in the LDS church, and I don't see any good coming from that. Read more ›

31 of 40 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars burned by the ending January 6, 2007

By ellen close

Format:Hardcover

I chanced upon this book, and raced through it. Surprisingly, I found the poetry format easy to read, though I would normally avoid this style. The author's talent was undeniable, in the terse, honest, sometimes rhyming verse. The emotions, dramas, and joys of late teen-age years were viscerally accurate and real. I would rate the book a 4 if it ended on a more optimistic note, as it is skillfully written, and the story engaging and worthwhile. In today's world, I simply cannot condone the ending, and found it not only disappointing but deeply disturbing. Pattyn Van Stratten is a high school junior, from a Mormon family. Her father, an alcoholic, abuses his wife and tyrannizes his 7 daughters. Pattyn struggles to find answers to her questions about faith and redemption; she wants to reconcile the violence and tyranny of her home life with her religious faith, but finds only complicity there. After her own small transgressions, she is shipped off to an Aunt in Nevada, where she is surprised to discover acceptance, friendship, freedom, love, and honesty. Unfortunately, this state of grace can't last, and ultimately it was the end of this book that I could not reconcile: it utterly lacked hope, and also seemed to justify the "Columbine" mentality, which repelled me. Although some reviewers were concerned about innacurate portrayal of Mormans in the book, that issue seemed minor to me: religion is often (always?) used as a tool of domination, one need look no further than Jimmy Jones and his kool-aid brew, or David Koresh, or Osama Bin Laden, or the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, or even the born-again revival fueled by W's presidency to see this as a sadly repetitive pattern in human history.... On the greater issue of abuse and its inevitable isolation, the book is both accurate, and despairing. Certainly there are enough newspaper articles to prove this tragic fact, though there are also some bright examples of overcoming the odds. I prefer to think of literature as escape, a way out, maybe even a real lifeline for those in need of rescue. In that light, I cannot accept the proffered solution for Pattyn's difficulty; too tragic for my taste. Read more ›

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH . . . January 17, 2011

By Poppy Wisemore

Format:Paperback

. . . 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....

And then there's the mean ole' bishop. When the abuse was going in my house, my bishop was nothing but supportive and he NEVER excused my father's behavior. He knew it was wrong, and he was on my side completely. I do understand that bishops vary, but a good one would never tell parents "to use the belt on their kids." That's just plain crazy.

Last is the misconception of the inferiority of women. Um, my mom is lawyer for crying out lot, a size 0, and has the best style I know. She's freaking hot. As for abuse, she never put up with that crap. She stood up to my dad, and I've always admired her for that. All the Mormon women in my life have careers. Her best friend is a photgrapher, my aunt is a principal, my other aunt a school teacher, and then a cousin who is a personal trainer. My friend is going to med school, another has her own store and business, and I hope to be a writer. We are not just farm animals who are supposed to breed.

But then again, I do understand that every situation varies. I was able to come out of my abuse with a clear mind and a strong testimony and a sense of humor on the side. Life's too short to be sad. Nonetheless I was so disappointed with this story. I was hoping to relate to it. I wasn't shocked by the tragic content; I could deal with that. The real sad thing here is the laziness of the author. She took no time to research the religion and find out the truth about it, and for a writer, that's UNACCEPTABLE. Read more ›