Impulse (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition) Book

Why Impulse is the WORST Book I've Ever Read

Warning: This review will contain unmarked spoilers!
Also, if you loved this book and are going to be angry if someone didn't like it, you may want to keep scrolling.

Oh boy. Where to start...

This is my second time reading this book. The first time was about a year ago, and it has stuck with me as one of the worst books I've ever read. I decided I wanted to do a reread as more of an in-depth analysis, looking for the problematic aspects I picked up on the first time around.

The Plot
The story follows three teens who have found themselves in Aspen Springs Psychiatric Hospital, each having recently attempted suicide. Conner is a golden boy with a bright future, Tony has spent much of his life in juvie and on the streets, and Vanessa lives in the shadow of her mother's mental illnesses.

I have this picture in my head of Ellen Hopkins sitting at her computer, trying to come up with her next novel idea. All of a sudden, it hits her! Why not make a list of all the horrible things that could happen and try to incorporate it into one book?

Issues that are involved in this book:
Suicide by gun
Parents pressuring children to be perfect
Parents with mental illness
Parents who neglect their children
Parents who abuse their children
Molestation of young children
Rich kid problems
Juvenile detention
Drugs - literally all of them - weed, heroin, meth, crystal
Suicide by drugs
Cutting
Sexuality
Suicide by cutting
Mental health facilities
Bipolar Disorder
Schizophrenia
Teacher/student relationships
Homophobia
AIDS
Veteran parents
Use of medication
Parental suicide
Abortion
Murder

And those are only the major ones. This list is long, if you didn't notice. Far too long of a list of complex issues for an author to deal with and execute well in one novel.

Each of these subjects deserve care and consideration when being written about, but most of them are either barely touched on or dealt with poorly. It came off as if the author wanted to cram as many issues as she could into the book simply for shock value.

From the interviews with Hopkins that I have read, this book is not own voices, and it shows. Hopkins talks in all of her interviews about how she needs to write for teens because their lives are so complex and whatever, yet she obviously does not understand teens in the slightest. More on that later.

The Writing
The thing is, this book actually doesn't start off that bad, but I think that's what makes me hate this book so much. I actually went in thinking I was going to like it, whereas books that are shit from page one I don't expect anything out of.

Most of the writing is good, quite good even. There are some passages about death and depression that do feel real. The verse is fine, though I think the verse just serves to reinforce the emotional manipulation with those oh-so-dramatic indentations.

But the writing falters with Hopkins's weird ass descriptions. Ellen Hopkins has no idea how human beings talk to each other, let alone teenagers. The dialogue is frickin' weird. Such as:
"Voices. Strange faces. A witches' stewpot of spells." Yup, a teenage boy would totally say 'a witches' stewpot'.
"Nothing about her hints nymph or flirt. She's a bulldog."
"Shit happens...and my shit literally hit the fan." Ellen Hopkins does not understand the meaning of the word 'literally'.
"Part of it is my old self, wanting nectar from a flower, the beat of a new heart." Puh-leez. Like anyone thinks like this.
"...an ice princess mom who raised me with glass kisses." Oh, come on. You expect me to believe this guy, who was talking about orgasms a page ago, thought up this metaphor?
"She doesn't even blink. Even a female dog wants her puppies clean and wrinkle-free'unless, of course, she's a Shar Pei." This is the quote meant to illustrate how Conner's mother is an evil bitch, but honestly if someone said this to me I would fall over laughing out of sheer confusion.
Perhaps this sort of writing is an attempt to make the story more dramatic. You tell me. I just think it sounds weird.

Oversexualization
"A woman like that will work like clay'soften her up, touch her just right, the sculptor is guaranteed to have his way."
The oversexualization of teenagers in this book is ridiculous. Yes, some teens are crazy horny but these guys are unrealistically gross.
"I've got her right where I want her'on her knees, my hands caught in her silky blond hair as she whispers, I want you, Conner. Let me chase away your thought of your Emily. Come to me when you get out of this place. I'll show you how a real woman makes love to men such as you, and I don't give a damn how high the stakes are."
This may shock you, but not all teens are obsessed with sex. The oversexualization here is just a lazy attempt to make her characters sound like teens. It's uncomfortable and actually kind of insulting.
"...acting too tough to tumble. He's a nutshell asking to crack. Wonder if he's ever let a guy touch that pumped-up bod." Just makes the character sound like a perv.
"Did she have a clue that all those dollars spent on haute couture allowed her sweet young son to feed his appetite for carnal pleasure'to divvy himself among a stable of fillies?" I actually feel gross reading that sentence. I'm supposed to sympathize with this character? And she actually thinks a teenage boy would say this? Or even an actual person of any age?

Misrepresentation of Mental Health Facilities

This book shows a mental health facility as completely incompetent. They don't help the characters at all.

Books about mental health should make an effort to show or even imply good relationships between the teens and therapists and those trying to help them, because many teens reading books like these are struggling with similar issues.

All adults but one in the novel are absolutely horrific. It does not encourage those going through similar things to seek help from adults and professionals, which is such a missed opportunity.

Let's not even talk about the fucking "level four wilderness camp". Please explain to me what mental health facility would think it's a good idea for their final test to be taking the "formerly" suicidal teenagers hiking ON A FUCKING CLIFF?! What did they think was going to happen?

But that aspect is just part of the Ellen Hopkins trademark overdramatic-shock-value-books. All it does is piss me off.

The Characters

Though this is a long book (666 pages, lol) the characters still feel underdeveloped. Things could have been delved into with more depth. Perhaps this was due to the verse?

Conner: He could have been a sympathetic character, but he actually ended up sounding kind of creepy. He comes off as manipulative, jealous, judgemental, homophobic, and rude. His thoughts are gross and often revolve around sex. He mocks the other patients dealing with mental illness. Yet we are meant to sympathize with him…

Tony: He's a nice guy. I liked Tony, really. He was the most interesting of the three. More on him in a bit.

Vanessa: Vanessa is a complete special snowflake. She thinks she's ugly but all the guys fawn over her and constantly tell her how beautiful and amazing she is. She's actually incredibly boring compared to the other main characters.

Suddenly, in the last 40 pages or so, Vanessa reveals she had an abortion previously. Vanessa's abortion plot is so pointless. It's brought up once near the very end and never talked about again. Why was it even included? We got no hints of it in her perspective and nothing about how it impacted her. Missed opportunity.

Tony's Sexuality

Tony starts off the story confident in his sexuality, until he suddenly realizes he was only gay because he was sexually abused and "turns straight".

This is so problematic I hardly know where to start.

Tony talks about how he thinks perversion is a result of being a target of perversion and then says he doesn't think he is gay, implying that his being gay was a result of being sexually abused.

Yes, I know Ellen Hopkins isn't homophobic, I've read other stuff by her. However, this book reinforces the idea that gay people are gay because there is something wrong with them, and that being gay is a form of perversion.

The story also implies that Tony needed to realize he was straight in order to recover.

It also reinforces that people who have been sexually abused are somehow broken or damaged or worse'likely to be perverted.
"Tony says he's gay and I'm guessing he really believes it, but he doesn't seem that way to me." Like you have any fucking idea or right to judge someone's sexuality, Conner.
"It [being gay] doesn't mean that to me, Vanessa. My lifestyle has caused me a lot of pain. I hope to change that when I get out of here." This is Tony actually implying that being gay is a cause of pain. I can't get over how his storyline of redemption is a storyline basically where he is cured of being gay.
"It's so new, this woman thing, yet it doesn't feel foreign. It feels like where I've always belonged."

Romanticization of Mental Illness

Not only is this book just a thinly veiled love triangle, but it is also one of the worst cases of romanticizing mental illness that I have ever read. Here:
"Vanessa and Tony'two fractured people, healed (perhaps) by unforeseen, not to mention unlikely, love." Oh Jesus fucking Christ! Implying that people who deal with mental illness are broken by calling them fractured and literally saying they were healed by love?!
The only characters that recover do so through falling in love, which reinforces that love is a cure for mental illness and the only way to recover is to fall in love romantically. Man, am I tired of reading that shit.
"I'll never stop cutting, lithium or no lithium. Only love can make me quit." If that doesn't prove this book romanticizes mental illness I don't know what will. The main character blatantly says that love is the only thing that can cure her.

Overall

Don't get me wrong, I've thought a lot about why this book is so highly rated. I think people get caught up in the overdramatized style, the emotional manipulation, and the pure shock value and it gets mistaken for good writing. In the end, a lot of people miss these issues because they're caught up in the writing.

This is definitely one of my least favorite books. I'm glad I reread it, because finding these quotes and providing a more well researched review makes me feel a lot better. I can only hope some others will see this review and recognize how many problematic tropes can be found in this book.

Also, I think this is the longest review I've ever written. Considering my feelings on this book, I'm not surprised.