So last week @Missy @charmaine and @lyxzen assigned a pretty rad blog homework "Tell us about your favorite author or book" I meant to blog about this last week, as I was incredibly excited for this topic, but life got too busy and I didn't have the proper amount of time needed to dedicate to telling you all about my favorite author: Ellen Hopkins. Ellen Hopkins is also the author of my all time favorite book:
Impulse was the very first book I picked up of hers and I remember the entire thing, I was with my bestfriend at the time, we grabbed some Starbucks and went up to the second level of our B&N to check out the teen fiction section and she went almost directly for the Ellen Hopkins books (in hindsight I now know why) she pulled out this book and another of Hopkins' Burned. She proceeded to tell me a bit of the plot in both, and explained what most of Hopkins' books center around, the hard topics, the real topics. Things like drugs, sex, love, heartbreak, suicide, mental disorders, social pressures, etc. She didn't stray from the "controversial" and that was that, I was sold.. I decided to take Impulse, and save Burned for another night (still haven't read it yet) grabbed ourselves some books, and went to sit down with them. I flew through page after page of Impulse and I remember I go through 60-70 pages before we decided to leave the mall, or rather before B&N closed. I ended up buying Impulse and flew through the whole thing, it was one of those books where I had to take a few weeks after and not read anything else, just to be able to digest all that had happened. What is Impulse about you may be asking?
Impulse is a story told from three different perspectives, 2 boys. 1 girl. All sharing one common thread - They wanted to die. It accounts the lives of three teenagers right before they take the plunge to off themselves, they all fail and end up in a sort of rehabilitation center, having to go through therapy and learning to deal with their demons, they eventually all bond, and it follows them throughout their journey in the "program" until they are supposed to be released. The unique thing about the story is Hopkins' writing itself. She has a very poetic style of writing, you will see it just by flipping through the pages of the book, as some of the text is formed into shapes and figures of what's described in the passage. I think that's another reason it's so amusing to read, you truly never know what to expect on the next page!
Here are a few quotes I fancy from Impulse:
“TRIAD:
Three
separate highways
intersect at a place
no reasonable person
would ever want to go.
Three
lives that would have
been cut short, if not
for hasty interventions
by loved ones. Or Fate.
Three
people, with nothing
at all in common
except age, proximity,
and a wish to die.
Three
tapestries, tattered
at the edges and come
unwoven to reveal
a single mutual thread.”
"Now that I have opened that bottle of memories they're pouring out like wine, crimson and bittersweet.”
Another favorite of mine by Hopkins' is Tricks:
Showing the trials and tribulations love in all forms can bring us.. following a vast array of characters and plot lines including but not limited to: a preacher's daughter trying to persure a "forbbidden love", a teenage prostitute, and a guy discovering his sexual identity. Like all of Hopkins' novels it's one that takes a few weeks to soak in, there are a lot of amazing quotes, almost too many to choose a few. I HIGHLY reccommend this book, and of course Impulse!
And last but not least when talking about Ellen Hopkins I must note the series that most people know: Crank, Glass, and Fallout:
This series is based on the true story of her own daughters struggles with meth.. The first two books are told from the daughters point of view, with the third being from the point of view of all her children once they've grown up, dealing with the struggles of growing up without a real identity, and even growing up being prone to becoming an addict. This is only loosely based around her daughter's story, but even still I think having the real life experiene to be able to pull from alotted her the ability to get the true gritty feel the book needed.
Ellen Hopkins is not only my favorite author, she's my favoritte writer, and by that I mean her style of writing it so unique, and inspiring. I don't get the chance to pull from it in what most read of my writings (my children's book) but in my personal writings I style it and am inspired almost solely by Hopkins. She is my perfect writer. <3