molly_dettmann 's review for:

Burned by Ellen Hopkins

3.0

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If I had read this back when it came out in 2006 I may have felt differently, but mostly it was a bit of a slog. Pattyn is a repressed Mormon teen with an alcoholic father who beats her mother and is the oldest of several siblings. When she starts having un-Mormonlike feelings for boys and freedom she soon gets caught partaking in both by her dad and sent to her ex-Mormon aunt’s house for the summer. Things are great, lots of ranching and stuff, love, and then she returns and things are worse than ever. The ending was very abrupt. Even though the religion of the characters was Mormonism, it kind of felt like any typical patriarchal religion and so I’m not sure what the point of that was. The summer scenes of love and killing cougars and herding cattle were slow and then there was the random bit about radiation poisoning. It all felt all over the place and then BAM that ending. A very meh read.