Book Review: THE BURN JOURNALS
*Note: this blog was created for a class at TWU
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Runyon, Brent. 2005. THE BURN JOURNALS. New York, NY: Random House Books.
2. PLOT SUMMARY:
Brent Runyon's memoir describes the year he attempted suicide by setting himself on fire from the depression he felt in the days leading up to it, to the excruciating months of hospitalization and physical therapy he underwent until he was able to return to public school.
3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS:
THE BURN JOURNALS are shocking, demoralizing, and beautiful all at once. Runyon begins his memoir with the day leading up to his suicide attempt, and the prose reveals a smart, funny, popular kid, who is deeply anxious and depressed about his life and actions. Like his family and friends, the reader is shocked when he pours gasoline on himself and lights it on fire. When he wakes up in the hospital, the prose is short, painfully broken, reflecting his physical state, and I found myself holding my breath, concerned that he wouldn't make it.
As Runyon begins to heal, his entries slowly regain some humor, but it isn't until almost three quarters of the way into THE BURN JOURNALS that he really begins to deal with the depression and guilt he feels for putting his family through everything. The fact that the journals don't try to have the pacing of a Disney movie is one of the aspects that keeps the memoir honest. Brent isn't always insightful or grateful to be alive. He's sometimes petty and stubborn, and fails to recognize how much his life and his family's life have changed as a result of "the accident."
Although at the end of the memoir, Brent is just beginning to attend public school again, and will face many challenges in the future, THE BURN JOURNALS leave the reader with a sense of hope for Brent's future, and a profound respect for his will to survive. At the end of the book, Brent thanks his editor for keeping him honest, and for forcing him to write the book. He also advises anyone who is depressed to get help and admits that depression is something with which he will always struggle. The website http://www.burnjournals.com/content.htmlhas resources for those with depression and who may be considering suicide as well as a photo gallery and information about what Brent is doing now.
THE BURN JOURNALS have been banned in some schools, and while we don't have it in our middle school library, it is available at the high school, and I have recommended it to 8th grade students on an individual basis. Sometimes it is compared with RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, a book which I felt contained a lot of details intended purely for shock value, and I wondered if parts had been exaggerated. In my opinion, THE BURN JOURNALS have much more merit, and should not be put in the same category.
4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S):
Booklist (starred review): "Runyon has, perhaps, written the defining book of a new genre, one that gazes as unflinchingly at boys on the emotional edge as Zibby O'Neal's The Language of Goldfish (1980) and Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak (1999) do at girls. Some excruciatingly painful moments notwithstanding, this can and should be read by young adults, as much for its literary merit as for its authentic perspective on what it means to attempt suicide, and, despite the resulting scars, be unable to remember why."
5. CONNECTIONS
* This book could be paired with FIREGIRL by Tony Abbott, which compassionately describes the (fictional) experience of a boy who befriends Jessica, a new girl in school who has been badly burned in an accident. The two books together reveal the effects of such a tragedy from different perspectives.
*Note: this blog was created for a class at TWU
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Runyon, Brent. 2005. THE BURN JOURNALS. New York, NY: Random House Books.
2. PLOT SUMMARY:
Brent Runyon's memoir describes the year he attempted suicide by setting himself on fire from the depression he felt in the days leading up to it, to the excruciating months of hospitalization and physical therapy he underwent until he was able to return to public school.
3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS:
THE BURN JOURNALS are shocking, demoralizing, and beautiful all at once. Runyon begins his memoir with the day leading up to his suicide attempt, and the prose reveals a smart, funny, popular kid, who is deeply anxious and depressed about his life and actions. Like his family and friends, the reader is shocked when he pours gasoline on himself and lights it on fire. When he wakes up in the hospital, the prose is short, painfully broken, reflecting his physical state, and I found myself holding my breath, concerned that he wouldn't make it.
As Runyon begins to heal, his entries slowly regain some humor, but it isn't until almost three quarters of the way into THE BURN JOURNALS that he really begins to deal with the depression and guilt he feels for putting his family through everything. The fact that the journals don't try to have the pacing of a Disney movie is one of the aspects that keeps the memoir honest. Brent isn't always insightful or grateful to be alive. He's sometimes petty and stubborn, and fails to recognize how much his life and his family's life have changed as a result of "the accident."
Although at the end of the memoir, Brent is just beginning to attend public school again, and will face many challenges in the future, THE BURN JOURNALS leave the reader with a sense of hope for Brent's future, and a profound respect for his will to survive. At the end of the book, Brent thanks his editor for keeping him honest, and for forcing him to write the book. He also advises anyone who is depressed to get help and admits that depression is something with which he will always struggle. The website http://www.burnjournals.com/content.htmlhas resources for those with depression and who may be considering suicide as well as a photo gallery and information about what Brent is doing now.
THE BURN JOURNALS have been banned in some schools, and while we don't have it in our middle school library, it is available at the high school, and I have recommended it to 8th grade students on an individual basis. Sometimes it is compared with RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, a book which I felt contained a lot of details intended purely for shock value, and I wondered if parts had been exaggerated. In my opinion, THE BURN JOURNALS have much more merit, and should not be put in the same category.
4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S):
Booklist (starred review): "Runyon has, perhaps, written the defining book of a new genre, one that gazes as unflinchingly at boys on the emotional edge as Zibby O'Neal's The Language of Goldfish (1980) and Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak (1999) do at girls. Some excruciatingly painful moments notwithstanding, this can and should be read by young adults, as much for its literary merit as for its authentic perspective on what it means to attempt suicide, and, despite the resulting scars, be unable to remember why."
5. CONNECTIONS
* This book could be paired with FIREGIRL by Tony Abbott, which compassionately describes the (fictional) experience of a boy who befriends Jessica, a new girl in school who has been badly burned in an accident. The two books together reveal the effects of such a tragedy from different perspectives.
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