Wow 15 pages into the Burn Journals and we already have a
suicidal kid that apparently has already tried hanging himself and cutting his
wrists. I would accept this if the character was a screwed up teenager with a
handful of issues like in The Runaways,
or like Kevin in the most disturbing movie I saw this weekend We Need To Talk About Kevin with
Tilda Swintom. Now that’s something to cry about! But that’s not what the burn
journals are about.
Brent is in seventh grade and he seems to be living up to the dream of being popular, being the class clown, messing with girls etc. He has a mom, dad, brother and dog. It’s like serendipity all over. I felt like he was dramatizing his life in a whole new maturity level, for example on page 18 he gives Stephen an Ace of Spades, so symbolic and strong he probably wants it to represent his will or last words. It just makes me want to slap him in the face saying “Hey wake up you’re only like what 13 and have a whole life ahead of you, it’s not like you’re in the notebook!"
It’s funny how he talks with his friend Laura so casual like “I’m going to go home today and set myself on fire". If it were me I would just laugh it off, but no. He was literary going to set himself on fire for all "the pain he’s caused". It’s interesting how compared to Darin Strauss who can write an entire memoir on just one moment that happened in the blink of an eye, Runyon did something so crazy and unjustifiable in a readers point of view and still he didn’t explain much as to why. Once he bathes his robe in gasoline you can’t help but think... s%#t just got real ( it’s not like he doesn’t throw in a few occasional f bombs in his memoir).He seems full on determined, but in that last second when he holds the match he does question himself, "Should I do it?". Let’s stop and think for a moment. We’re not talking about the kind of doubt that eats your insides when sending a cheesy text to your crush, were talking about burning yourself alive. The worst part comes when he lights the match but it burns out. That has to feel like playing Russian roulette with your life! Phew ok you dodged that one bullet, but now from somewhere deep inside you have to find the courage to light yet another match!
In all of this commotion if hospitals and tubes I couldn’t help but notice how Brent started to see everything in a beautiful way. Of all the things he did this is perhaps the only feeling I can relate to. He had just seen his reflection in the microwave, and after seeing 8 straight episodes of greys anatomy I can tell you third degree burns are not a pretty sight. He sees his mom’s eyes, pictures the Hawaiian volcanoes and it all seems beautiful because it is, he probably would have never thought about beauty if he hadn’t seen his face.
Also I couldn’t help but notice occasional humor in such tragedy. I have to admit I giggled a little when he compared the faces of his dog and his brother when they opened the door to a living torch, and when he couldn’t help but check to see if his penis was ok. I feel like he was being 100 % honest. He didn’t write about what people expected him to feel or expected him to react. He simply wrote what was running through his mind as a boy, and yes that included tits, masturbation, and sometimes just skipping the whole medical part of his collapsed lungs and recalling he just wanted to go home.
Brent is in seventh grade and he seems to be living up to the dream of being popular, being the class clown, messing with girls etc. He has a mom, dad, brother and dog. It’s like serendipity all over. I felt like he was dramatizing his life in a whole new maturity level, for example on page 18 he gives Stephen an Ace of Spades, so symbolic and strong he probably wants it to represent his will or last words. It just makes me want to slap him in the face saying “Hey wake up you’re only like what 13 and have a whole life ahead of you, it’s not like you’re in the notebook!"
It’s funny how he talks with his friend Laura so casual like “I’m going to go home today and set myself on fire". If it were me I would just laugh it off, but no. He was literary going to set himself on fire for all "the pain he’s caused". It’s interesting how compared to Darin Strauss who can write an entire memoir on just one moment that happened in the blink of an eye, Runyon did something so crazy and unjustifiable in a readers point of view and still he didn’t explain much as to why. Once he bathes his robe in gasoline you can’t help but think... s%#t just got real ( it’s not like he doesn’t throw in a few occasional f bombs in his memoir).He seems full on determined, but in that last second when he holds the match he does question himself, "Should I do it?". Let’s stop and think for a moment. We’re not talking about the kind of doubt that eats your insides when sending a cheesy text to your crush, were talking about burning yourself alive. The worst part comes when he lights the match but it burns out. That has to feel like playing Russian roulette with your life! Phew ok you dodged that one bullet, but now from somewhere deep inside you have to find the courage to light yet another match!
In all of this commotion if hospitals and tubes I couldn’t help but notice how Brent started to see everything in a beautiful way. Of all the things he did this is perhaps the only feeling I can relate to. He had just seen his reflection in the microwave, and after seeing 8 straight episodes of greys anatomy I can tell you third degree burns are not a pretty sight. He sees his mom’s eyes, pictures the Hawaiian volcanoes and it all seems beautiful because it is, he probably would have never thought about beauty if he hadn’t seen his face.
Also I couldn’t help but notice occasional humor in such tragedy. I have to admit I giggled a little when he compared the faces of his dog and his brother when they opened the door to a living torch, and when he couldn’t help but check to see if his penis was ok. I feel like he was being 100 % honest. He didn’t write about what people expected him to feel or expected him to react. He simply wrote what was running through his mind as a boy, and yes that included tits, masturbation, and sometimes just skipping the whole medical part of his collapsed lungs and recalling he just wanted to go home.
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