REVIEW: Impulse by Ellen Hopkins

Title: Impulse (Impulse #1)

Author: Ellen Hopkins
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mental Illness.
Publication Date: May 20th 2008
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Format: Paperback
Pages: 666
Rating: 5/5

Sometimes you don't wake up. But if you happen to, you know things will never be the same.

Three lives, three different paths to the same destination: Aspen Springs, a psychiatric hospital for those who have attempted the ultimate act -- suicide.

Vanessa is beautiful and smart, but her secrets keep her answering the call of the blade.

Tony, after suffering a painful childhood, can only find peace through pills.

And Conner, outwardly, has the perfect life. But dig a little deeper and find a boy who is in constant battle with his parents, his life, himself.

In one instant each of these young people decided enough was enough. They grabbed the blade, the bottle, the gun -- and tried to end it all. Now they have a second chance, and just maybe, with each other's help, they can find their way to a better life -- but only if they're strong and can fight the demons that brought them here in the first place.

I never thought that this book, or any of Ellen Hopkins’ work, would be my sort of thing. As I’m sure most of you already know, Ellen Hopkins books are all written completely in verse. Let me admit something…I’m not the biggest fan of poetry- I like me some Seamus Heaney and John Keats but that’s pretty much where my experiences end. Therefore, the idea of reading a whole book, a 600 plus page book filled with verse seemed completely ludicrous to me. You might be wondering why I even picked up Impulse in the first place. I have a simple answer for this – I’m trying to read more widely, and while Impulse is still YA, obviously it’s quite different to my normal choice of books.

Anyway, moving on to the actual review now. As you may have guessed from that little spiel, I really wasn’t sure that I was going to like Impulse at all and I didn’t. I LOVED IT. Apart from the whole verse thing, the content isn’t something I’d usually go for – it’s incredibly dark, depressing and raw, and most of the books I read (no matter the genre) are usually lighter. 

I had a great childhood and family, so I’ve never experienced anything even remotely like what happens to the three characters in the book but the writing made me feel like I was there with them, watching them and going through similar stuff. It was both brilliant and completely terrifying. Each poem is incredibly beautiful but also haunting- I can’t even begin to describe it to someone who hasn’t read the book. They just made me feel every emotion possible- I could feel happy when they characters were feeling good and then the next minute I could feel like depression was weighing down on me. I just couldn’t stop reading.

I want to talk about the characters, obviously. There are the three main characters – Vanessa, Conner and Tony. They all have different voices, different problems but I felt connected to each of them. Like I said, I’ve never gone through anything like what they do but I felt like I could understand what they were feeling. Do you see what I mean about that being terrifying? I fell in love with each of the characters though- in an ‘I want to save you all and make you be happy and cuddle and love you forever’ kind of way. I’m not going to lie, sometimes they completely broke my heart and other times I wanted to scream at them for being such idiots, but I still loved them. I didn’t expect to grow close to any of them or to the story, but within a couple of pages I just did. I don’t think they’re easy characters to love at all or even like sometimes, but the writing just drew me in too much! 

I read the whole book within about 24 hours- ever time I had the chance to read, I picked it up and I think it only took me about three sittings to read. The thing was, the moment I opened the book and began to read I was completely sucked it- seriously, my house could have set fire and I wouldn’t have noticed. I just couldn’t believe how desperate I was to know how the story would end and where each of the characters would end up. I know I would have read it in the one sitting if my life allowed it – it was just that good. 

I hope somehow that my review convinces even just one of you to pick up the book, especially if you don’t think you’ll like a book entirely in verse. The subject of suicide, depression and other mental illnesses is such an important topic and sometimes I think it can be brushed over or not expressed well enough in books – I think this is a good example. It’s not a nice book, it’s not a pretty or happy story but it’s real and I think that’s all that really matters. So I urge you, please, please read this book- I don’t think you’ll regret it. If you have already read the book then I have two things for you, number one – please talk to me about that ending, I need to talk to somebody about THAT ending. Secondly, tell me which Ellen Hopkins book to read next because I need more of her in my life, desperately. I wish I had more to say in this review because I don’t think I even really begin to cover how amazing this is, but I can’t seem to put together actual coherent sentences anymore – the feels are just taking over my brain.

*Apologies for the crappy, blurry image of the cover - this was the best one I could find.

COLOUR SCHEMES #2

As it turns out, I really like making these colour scheme things and it seems like some of you do too. Today, I've got a couple more for you! I've decided this is going to be a weekly feature, so check back every Saturday for more colour schemes...

I will eventually get around to doing the whole series, and I'll do a separate post of just those when it comes to that.

I picked this one thinking it would be a nice bright, summery one but apparently not...

I've been reading this book for ages but I just don't have the desire to keep going. I was hoping that this might give me the boost I needed.

This is actually one of my favourites. The colour scheme fits so unbelievably well with the story- I just love it.

Mint green is one of my absolute favourite colours, so I had to do Fangirl, obviously.

So that's it for this week. Next week is going to be incredibly awesome as we have my lovely friend, Ebony of Daring Damsels joining us. See you all then!

GUEST POST + GIVEAWAY: Melissa Wray

What sparked the idea to write Destiny Road?

Recently Melissa Wray was asked this question by Uncommon YA. Here is her very personal response.

We moved to North Queensland when I was 14. After a year or so Mum could see that something about Townsville and I did not mix. Strangely enough it was her suggestion to ring my dad and ask if I could move back south.

So I did. Then I packed my bags and moved 3,000km away to live with him. This decision is what sparked the idea for Destiny Road.

Now I never set out to write this story, let alone have it published. It just kind of happened. It came about because one night I was lying in bed and couldn’t sleep. There was an unspoken conversation going on in my mind. It was a conversation that I regret not having and has played on my mind over the years. This particular night it got the better of me so I got up and began to write. It wasn’t until after I read through those mad ramblings a couple of weeks later that I thought hmmm … I could create a story from this. So I began writing. I passed my 10,000 word milestone. Then 20 then 30 then before I knew it 50,000 words had been typed.

You see I think about that one phone call I made all those years ago sometimes. I have often thought about how that decision, that one pivotal moment that is talked about in Destiny Road, really did change the course of my life. I’m sure as you're reading this you can look back over your life, and pinpoint one moment that has shaped it in a big way. I truly believe that Dad saying yes when I asked was a determining factor in how things have turned out for me.

One afternoon I was sitting with him. He got to talking about his philosophy on life and death. Dad had been fighting a battle against cancer for a while at this point and I was kneeling next to him as he sat on his reclining chair. He was holding my hand as he shared these ideas on life and death. He said to me "It’s cool. Whatever happens, it’s cool." My dad used cool a lot when he spoke. He was pretty cool. He was also a big believer in God. So that afternoon he said "It’s cool if I die because I get to meet my maker." ‘Then he said "But it’s cool if I live because I get to be with the ones I love." This was his philosophy. Either way was cool with him.

I remember kneeling there, holding his hand and wishing I could say thankyou to him. Thanks for saying yes all those years ago. Thanks for that pivotal moment in my life. I wanted him to know how much that meant. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t get those words out.

That night he passed away.

I never did get to tell him and have regretted that for the past 10 years. So you see once the spark to write Destiny Road was lit, it had to finished. It was my tribute, my thankyou and I am beyond thrilled it was published.

Now I’m not going to bore you with my views on life and death but I can’t help but wonder something, because anyone who knew my dad, Rod Morris, and anyone who knew his sense of humour ... well I can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a helping hand when Morris Publishing (no relation) chose to publish Destiny Road. I like to think so.

It's hard to believe two years has passed since the launch of Destiny Road. To celebrate there is a chance to win 2 x $20 Gift Cards, ENTER NOW!

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To connect with Melissa;

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Read the 1st chapter of Destiny Road FREE.

DISCUSSION: My Favourite Female Characters

I think I should start this discussion post but saying that this is list isn't all of my favourite female characters, in fact if I was going to list all of them then we'd be here for an awfully long time. I decided to do this post today because I've been thinking about female characters in YA a lot lately- a lot of them get labelled as being 'strong' just because they're kickass. Strong for me means being not just physically strong but mentally strong too. Some of these characters are physically strong, others aren't but let's get started.

1. Violet Baudelaire from A Series of Unfortunate Events
I've talked about Violet many, many times here but I just really adore her. She's definitely not physically strong, but god is she smart! Violet invents things you see, throughout the series she comes up with these brilliant inventions that save her and her siblings. Violet was one of the first characters I ever seriously loved and I think she was a great role model- I know I always wanted to be just like Violet when I grew up. (Okay, so the inventing thing totally never happened)

2. Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series
Of course no list would be complete without Miss Granger. I admit that Hermione isn't my favourite character in the entire series, but I think she's still incredibly amazing. Like Violet, she's incredibly intelligent too but she also has her flaws. (Can you tell I read these two series at the same time?) Also, Emma Watson is just a glorious human being.

3. Liesel Meminger from The Book Thief
If Liesel were a real person, I would totally adopt her as a cute younger sister- I love her that much. I know she's only young in the book but she's so incredibly strong and wise, but she's also a troublemaker. The best thing is, of course, she's a reader!

4. June Iparis from the Legend trilogy
June is one of Chami's favourite characters, and while I'm not as obsessed with her- I still think that June is a wonderful character. Again, she's extremely smart but also extremely badass. I admit, if I was ever going to live in a dystopian world, I'd want June on my side.

5. Celaena Sardothien from the Throne of Glass series
If you know me at all, you probably know that Celaena is most definitely my favourite character right now. She takes badass to a whole new level, and while she isn't exactly the nicest person- she's just so interesting to read about and I can't help but love her.

So those were the five characters I wanted to talk about today. Like I said, this is a very abridged list but I thought I'd just start with these! I hope you enjoyed this post and I will see you tomorrow with another new post :)

UPDATE: Booktube and Other Things

Hi guys! It's been a while since I did one of these, but it's time for an update today.

I don't know whether you've noticed but I've been posting every day for the last five days. Even when Chami and I were most active, we never posted every single day but I've noticed that quite a few blogs do it so I thought I'd try it myself. I'm not going to promise that this will be a constant thing, but I'm going to try and post every single day until the end of this month just to see how it goes.

What's next? Booktube! I've been booktubing on and off for a couple of months now. I'm not a particularly interesting booktuber- I only really post book hauls, but I absolutely love doing it. I'm hoping to use my channel and this blog in conjunction with one another in the future. Oh, and you can find my channel here. I wanted to bring this up now because once Chami has finished her exams, we're hoping to make some awesome bookish videos together (and I wanted to make you guys excited about that).

(That better be all of you, right now.)

Reading-wise, I'm sort of in a slump but not really. I've actually been hanging out with friends a lot the past couple of weeks so I haven't really had much time to read and I'm still struggling to find something that holds my attention. I've started Heir of Fire but I'm reading it quite slowly because I don't know if I'll be able to handle it- I just have a lot of feels!

So the reading leads me into my next part which is book buying. I've placed myself on book buying ban since coming back from Sydney. It's my birthday at the beginning of October so I'm trying to hold myself off from getting anything until then, but if things go really well I'd like to resist buying books until the end of October, after my exams. We'll see how that turns out though.

Now onto the massively exciting part of this post...COLLABS. I'm lucky enough to being collabing with two of my bestest blogging buddies this month and I am SO excited. Firstly, Chiara of Books for a Delicate Eternity and I will be doing a discussion post on Every Breath and Every Word by Ellie Marney. I don't know exactly when this will be going up yet or the finer details of the post but it's going to be awesome! Even more exciting than that (I do love Chiara, very very much), Ebony of Daring Damsels and I are going a little bit nuts together this month. We have three different collabs this month - we're doing a part two of our Cover Comparisons, Ebony will be joining me for my new Colour Schemes feature and we're also hosting a read-a-long for The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson (more on that later). On top of all of that, this Friday we're going to see Les Mis together which is going to be seriously brilliant.

How exciting is all of that? And yes, that is how I feel right now. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy all this exciting stuff when it happens! Tell me about some of the awesome things in your life right now...(or not so exciting)

Top Authors I've Only Read One Book From But NEED to Read More

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, and you can find more about this meme here. This week is the top ten authors I've only read one book from but need to read more.


1. Philip Pullman
I read The Golden Compass/Northern Lights last year for the first time and adored it. Despite that fact, I haven't read the rest of the trilogy yet even though I've owned them since I finished the first.

2. Kody Keplinger
I read The DUFF this month and words cannot describe how much I loved that book- I really, really adored it. Obviously that means I have to give one of her other books a try!

3. Jessica Spotswood
This is the same deal as Philip Pullman, but I only read Born Wicked this month. I loved the book and I've got the second one waiting for me as soon as I finish one of the many books I'm currently trying to read.

4. Kristen Britain
So yes, a lot of these are authors of series that I've read the first book of and haven't gotten to the rest of the series yet, and Kristen Britain is no exception there.

5. Neil Gaiman
I am absolutely desperate to read another Gaiman after I read Coraline. A few people have told me Stardust is the best one to try next but I'm open to other suggestions!

6. John Flanagan
I read the first book is the Ranger's Apprentice series a few months back and I've just been waiting to start on the rest of the series. I just have to go and steal them off my brother's bookshelf...

7. Elizabeth Gaskell
After reading North and South I kind of became a bit of a Elizabeth Gaskell fangirl and I just constantly stalk out editions of her books. I currently have both Wives and Daughters and Cranford out from my Uni library but I haven't gotten around to either of them.

8. Elizabeth Wein
I read Rose Under Fire...last year, I think, and I loved it (and also hated it because I cried so much) so I've been desperate to read Code Name Verity ever since. I keep putting it off because I don't know whether I'm ready for that kind of pain again.

9. Markus Zusak
The Book Thief was one of the first books I read this year and, of course, I loved it. I don't know whether his other books will affect me in quite the same way which is why I guess I'm avoiding them...

10. Suzy Zail
Look at that- three authors who've written books about World War Two in a row! anyway, Suzy Zail is an amazing fellow Melbourne author and I adored her book The Wrong Boy. Her newest one- Alexander Altmann A10567, just came out this year and I am desperate to read it!

MOST ANTICIPATED READS: September 2014

Welcome to Most Anticipated Reads! At the start of every month (I'm sorry this month is late!), we'll be showing three of our most anticipated reads for that particular month. Pretty straight forward, right? Without further ado, our most anticipated reads for September 2014.

The Infinite Sea (The Fifth Wave #2) by Rick Yancey
Out September 16th | Goodreads

How do you rid the Earth of seven billion humans? Rid the humans of their humanity.

Surviving the first four waves was nearly impossible. Now Cassie Sullivan finds herself in a new world, a world in which the fundamental trust that binds us together is gone. As the 5th Wave rolls across the landscape, Cassie, Ben, and Ringer are forced to confront the Others’ ultimate goal: the extermination of the human race.

Cassie and her friends haven’t seen the depths to which the Others will sink, nor have the Others seen the heights to which humanity will rise, in the ultimate battle between life and death, hope and despair, love and hate.

Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer

Out September 30th | Goodreads

If life were fair, Jam Gallahue would still be  at home in New Jersey with her sweet British  boyfriend, Reeve Maxfield. She’d be watching  old comedy sketches with him. She’d be kissing  him in the library stacks.

She certainly wouldn’t be at The Wooden Barn, a therapeutic boarding school in rural Vermont, living with a weird roommate, and signed up for an exclusive, mysterious class called Special Topics in English.

But life isn’t fair, and Reeve Maxfield is dead.

Until a journal-writing assignment leads Jam to Belzhar, where the untainted past is restored, and Jam can feel Reeve’s arms around her once again. But there are hidden truths on Jam’s path to reclaim her loss.

From New York Times bestselling author Meg Wolitzer comes a breathtaking and surprising story about first love, deep sorrow, and the power of acceptance.

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
Out September 16th | Goodreads

A brilliant, luminous story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell

Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.

This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.