(Note: spoiler at the end of the response)
After finishing the book "Burned" by Ellen Hopkins, I have come to the conclusion that there is quite a bit of disturbing content. The main character, Pattyn, is a Mormon teen in high school with a large, and complicated, family. She is the oldest of six sisters and later a brother, her mother is lazy, and her father is violent. Pattyn's father beats and hurts her, the second oldest sister, Jackie, and their mom. There are also pages talking and describing sexual intercourse, which later leads to Pattyn being pregnant. Although “Burned” includes lots of unsettling material, the author included it because she wanted to show awareness to these issues and truly understand how Pattyn felt in these situations.
The two topics Hopkins wrote about most intensely are child abuse, and teen pregnancy. I feel that these topics are very strong ones to chose, and many people have already taken action to raise awareness. But for teens, if they hear or read about these issues, most likely they’ll either feel lucky to not be in that situation, or feel uncomfortable because they are in that situation. That’s why I believe the author made a very good choice of weaving these issues into a YA book, because if teens get emotional after reading “Burned”, they can drive their emotions towards helping stop these problems. Also, if they read about these topics now as a young adult, later in life they will most likely feel glad that they weren’t pregnant at the age of eighteen like Pattyn. And if they decide to become a parent, after reading about how horrible Pattyn’s father really was to her, Jackie, and their mom, they will probably not want to do the same thing to their own child.
I feel that Hopkins also had to include this disturbing content and write so deeply about it because otherwise people who haven’t gone through what Pattyn did wouldn’t get how it really feels. If Hopkins had just plainly said that Pattyn’s father slapped her, the reader would probably feel upset, but that’s it. Whereas, by having a full two pages just about Pattyn’s dad slapping her, as well as many more on him continuing to abuse her, the readers usually get a discomforting feeling that makes them almost want to stop reading the book. This emotion, although not very positive, means that the content from the book has dug deeper than just “upsetting”, and that the reader feels not just sympathy, but even a bit of empathy.
Overall, it seems to me that these issues being put in the book made it all the better. At the end of the book, Pattyn’s fiancé dies, along with their baby, in a car crash. I believe that if Hopkins hadn’t intensified these issues, the ending would be somewhat loose and just depressing. But, because the author did, the ending was all the more upsetting, as well as thought-provoking.
