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The Burn Journals | 
 enlarge | Author: Brent Runyon
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $2.00
You Save: $11.95 (86%)
New (42) Used (33) Collectible (2) from $2.00
Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 90031
Media: Paperback
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 1400096421
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.28092
EAN: 9781400096428
ASIN: 1400096421
Publication Date: October 11, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
I don’t want to get out of bed.
I’m so stupid.
I did so many things wrong.
I don’t know what to do.
I’m going to be in so much trouble.
What am I going to do?
I’m completely screwed.
In 1991, fourteen-year-old Brent Runyon came home from school, doused his bathrobe in gasoline, put it on, and lit a match.
He suffered third-degree burns over 85% of his body and spent the next year recovering in hospitals and rehab facilities. During that year of physical recovery, Runyon began to question what he’d done, undertaking the complicated journey from near-death back to high school, and from suicide back to the emotional mainstream of life.
In the tradition of Running with Scissors and Girl, Interrupted, The Burn Journals is a truly remarkable book about teenage despair and recovery.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 40 more reviews...
Four Stars December 9, 2008
Joyce Bullock-vigdor (Marietta, GA USA)
The Burn Journals
Being an adolescent like Brent, I can relate to this story rather easily. This book was on my schools 2008-2009 Senior Year Summer Reading List, so, based on past experiences with these books, I honestly did not expect this book to interest me as much as it did. For younger readers, this may be a little too graphic. This book touches on subjects such as self-mutilation, depression, and school violence, as well as having several sexual scenes as well. There are a few scenes that might be too graphic: Brent setting himself on fire, him relieving his... sexual tension while in the hospital, and also some of his language can be vulgar as well.
However, this memoir does a brilliant job capturing how a teenagers mind truly works, which is good for those older reader who may want to know what may be going on inside of some of our adolescent minds. Nonetheless, I think it could have been a better book if it had ended on a happier note (even though I know it's a true story), as the reader is constantly reading about rather depressing and hopeless subjects (his attempted suicide, him feeling like his friend and family have abandoned him, etc.). I felt like, in the end, he was a static character (in the emotional sense) rather than a dynamic one, since Brent still had thoughts of suicide during the last part of the memoir. Even so, the authors note at the end (written by Brent) does discuss his depression to a slightly deeper extent and talks more about how he received help later on in life.
Upon reflection, I don't think it would be the best idea for someone who is suffering from depression to read this book, as they might interpret it as a "how to" book, rather than just a story of a child who made a bad choice.
What are you expecting? November 14, 2008
Tara N. Wehmeyer (Virginia Beach, VA)
I can honestly begin by saying I enjoyed this story very much. I read the last twenty pages in the car on my way to visit my mother and step-father in the hospital six hours away after experiencing a motorcycle accident a few days beforehand. My mother I knew would be fine but my doubts about the outcome of my stepfather were weighing on me. He was paralyzed from the waste down permanently and broke several vertebrae in his neck, upper, and lower back. He was on life support. He was non-responsive.
This book ventures over and over the question we all at some point ask God, society, ourselves: Why do bad things happen to good people?
Life is always difficult but with time you learn to deal with it better.
My only complaint (which really has no basis really as the point of view was in fact written from a teenage boy's perspective) was that it was written so elementary. But in retrospect it held a youthful poetic rhythm unlike any other book I've read.
 unimaginable November 10, 2008
Mara Zonderman (NY)
It takes a lot of courage to write a book like this. Most people can not write so openly and honestly about their feelings, especially when they know they've done something to grievously hurt their family. But Brent Runyon can, and does.
As an eight grader, Brent set fire to himself in a suicide attempt. He suffered sever burns over 85% of his body, but, obviously, did not die. Brent's story takes us from the events immediately preceding his attempt and through the many months of his recovery.
Much of the narrative is taken up with the details and routines that anyone suffering such severe burns must endure, no matter how they occurred. But in Brent's case there is the ever-present knowledge that he brought this on himself.
Although I wish we could have learned more about why Brent attempted suicide in the first place, he says very plainly (through recounted sessions with assorted psychologists) that he doesn't really know why he did it, can't remember what could have made him so sad and desperate, and certainly isn't going to do anything like it again. A cautionary tale indeed for any teens thinking of committing suicide.
Burn Journal November 9, 2008
Charles Foor (Fredericksburg, VA)
Great book and great story. Warning, this book is NOT PG-rated. Brent tells his story in a very compelling manner. Had to do some on-line research to find out more about him!
Guy book October 23, 2008
C. J. Good
As a teacher, this book was rough to try and get through. The issues are heavy and gritty, but guys truly love this book. Girls that like the book - A Child Called It - really get into it as well. I would not recommend this book for students under grade nine because of some of the content unless the student is more mature than most.
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