Guest post by Hannah from Taunt who reviews Impulse by Ellen Hopkins

You know how you can pick your friends but not your family? I'm lucky enough to have someone who is both - my sister-in-law, Hannah! She is the Cool Aunt to my kids, the fun SIL that everyone wants to hang out with, AND she is super-good to my brother. Hannah is a bit (a lot) edgier and grittier than me (think Avril Levine vs. the Stapler Guy on Office Space), smart as a whip, and her sense of humor is off the wall. She's also my BFF -Yes, our husbands think we're having an affair!

Hannah recently did a blurb on her blog about some books she read by Ellen Hopkins, and I invited her to guest post here:

Wish
you could turn off
the questions, turn
off the voices,
turn off all sound.

Yearn
to close out
the ugliness, close
out the filthiness,
close out all light.

Long
to cast away
yesterday, cast
away memory,
cast away all jeopardy.

Pray
you could somehow stop
the uncertain, somehow
stop the loathing,
somehow stop the pain.

Act
on your impulse,
swallow the bottle,
cut a little deeper,
put the gun to your chest.

______________________

Vanessa and her blade. Controlling the only thing in her life she can. Her flesh. The warmth of her blood released from its thin casing brings her the only relief, the only comfort she has ever known. I completely understood Vanessa's need to control something. Even if it's her demise.

Todd and his pills. When your childhood is filled with an abusive mother, nonexistent father, viscous juvenile facilities, and the added burden of homosexual phobias, the bottom of a bottle surely looks most appealing. Take one and feel lovely. Take two and feel the bliss of divinity. Take fifteen and ride that wave of joy onto the other side. Surely it can't be worse than this. Can it?

Connor and his gun. Well, to be honest, his father's gun. But his mother pulled the trigger. No matter the ivy league lifestyle, torment and constant failure were plastered to the walls of his home. A film of disease laying atop Ralph Lauren paint. They say this generation is a coddled one, well not in Connor's house. In his house, failure is not an option. I know that breath he exhaled when he pulled the trigger was the cleanest and purest of his entire life.

As the three shuffle through their experiences in a psychiatric institution I fell in love with each of Vanessa, Connor and Todd for all the wrong reasons. Secrets, failures and family, abuse and desire, love and lust, longing for a hug, a smile, a bond. With something. Other than a dope or a blade or a bullet.

I laughed. I cried. I recommend it.