![]() The summary will take each teen’s story in turn, though in the novel they are interspersed and not always chronologically arranged. The center follows a behavioral model of treatment, rewarding its charges with extra privileges for a series of increasingly progress-demonstrating acts. Seventeen-year-olds Vanessa O'Reilly, Tony Ceccarelli, and Conner Sykes have just been admitted to Aspen Springs residential center in the wake of their unsuccessful suicide attempts. ![]() The novel doesn’t shy away from graphic descriptions of self-harm and suicide, and there are studies showing that people at risk for this behavior are more prone to act on their ideations after consuming media that portray them. The novel is gritty, and its critics worry about a variety of issues: everything from a problematically portrayed gay character, to a cavalier approach to mental illness, to the inability to successfully tackle the myriad traumas it inflicts on its young characters with real emotional depth. In short, two-page chapters written from the points of view of three different teenagers, the novel explores the dark, harrowing things that have brought them to where they all are today: recovering from suicide attempts in a mental hospital. ![]() Impulse (2007) is a young adult novel in free verse by Ellen Hopkins. ![]()
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