Burned by Ellen Hopkins

() This is a good book, no doubt about it. The only criticism I have is that it's just such a tragic narrative. It made me bawl afterwards. Some of the sequences of sad events seem almost unreal because of the never-ending drama; but at the same time, still very plausible.
The main character is a teenage girl named Pattyn Von Stratten. Her family is very strictly Mormon. Her mother is a baby maker (7 daughters) and her dad is a highly abusive alcoholic. Pattyn is a smart girl who questions her families ways, but being young, she runs into horrid mistakes during the process. So to solve this, her family sends her to her aunt's rural ranch to stay for the summer. There, she finds herself, but also creates even more trouble for her future. (It didn't have to be trouble, but you know the way this very catastrophic world works.) The book ends with an unsure conclusion where Pattyn is deciding between murder or suicide.
The writing in this book is good, though very unconventional. It's like every chapter is an art piece, or poem. I'd recommend it if you don't mind feeling completely hopeless about life for a while, otherwise choose something with a little more positive lesson. This basically expresses that going against the norm will bring some good, but mostly bad into one's life; at least that's the way it worked out for Pattyn.