by: Brooke Austwicksummary:
I read the book “The burn journals”. The main character was named Brent Runyon. He was fourteen years old. One day at school, he lit a pack of matches on fire in the locker room. His hand was a giant ball of fire, so he threw it in the gym locker, to see everybody’s reactions. A gym shirt started on fire, and the gym teacher found it. Brent didn’t want to confess to it, because his parents thought very highly of him. If the teachers called them, his life would be over. So instead of causing his parent’s the hurt, he wanted to kill himself. Brent went home from school that day, drenched his bathrobe on fire, put it on, and lit a match. When he woke up, he was laying in a hospital bed with third-degree burns over 85 percent of his body. During the whole next year, he spent every day recovering in rehab facilities, and hospitals. Everyday he’d get up, and lay there all day. It wasn’t for months, until he could actually be removed from the bed. This story explains the journey of a eighth grade boy, and his adventure between depression, humiliation, and the first day of high school. He’d have to walk in with the guilt of the pain he’d caused not only himself, but everybody around him. Of course everybody had known what happened, he was just another overly depressed and emotional boy, who had nothing better on his hands to do, then to light himself on fire, and live with the pain. “The burn journals”, was a true story, written by an author named Brent Runyon, also known as the main character in the story.
review:
I enjoyed “the burn journal” very much. It’s a story based on depression that some kids our age go through every day. You learn about how Brent Runyon went through high school, and all the consequences he suffered from his stupid mistake. It was a story filled with a lot of emotions, and feelings. You read through therapy sessions, and learn about what each family members opinion and thoughts were on the situation. Not only is it a sad story, and a depressing story, but some part's are very exciting. There's part's of the story, where you think his life will never be what it was before, and your right. But he never gave up. Once he started getting better, he went out to the store, or to the movies, with his nurses, and parents. Eventually he recovers enough to go to a special school before he enters the regular high school. All the kid's that go that have some sort of problem, or drug addiction. He doesn't make friends their, but when he goes back to school, he still had all his friends who were there for him from the start. All though there's plenty of thing's he'll never be able to do, and plenty of things he might never be able to try, he lives with the consequences of suicide attempt. Overall this story is my favorite I've read so far. i recommend it.
picture: I chose a picture of matches, because that's what he uses to light himself on fire.
