Kaytlin Norris “Impulse” by Ellen Hopkins
Text Based Comprehension:
Characters:
1) The three main characters in this book are Conner, Anthony (Tony), and Vanessa.
2) I like both Tony and Vanessa because they both have a good personality once their shells were broken. However, I disliked Conner because he did always seem to be the one that had always been acting as if he was the best out of all the other patients at Aspen Springs.
3) All the characters have changed in some ways. Tony was at first sure that he knew he was “gay”. Later on, once Vanessa came along, he started feeling a lot different around her then he had around any other girl. Tony then realized that he wasn’t gay, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to be labeled as anything. Vanessa has changed for the better because she hasn’t had the feeling that she needed to cut. She has also realized what true love is. Conner, however, changed in the ways for the worse. He had stopped taking his meds cold turkey, and he had decided he had nothing to live for after Aspen Springs, so he took his life in his own hands and jumped off over the cliff to his suicide.
4) Well, I can’t judge Conner, because he truly felt lost and alone. Plus he never really opened up to have people help him. His choice to jump off of the cliff, leading him to suicide, was not at all good. It was wrong in a lot of ways.
5) I will say that all three of these characters have at least one aspect about them that I could relate myself too. Vanessa and I share the cutting, Tony and I share the feeling of being alone, and Conner and I have had the same feeling that there is nothing left to live for.
Conflict:
1) A conflict that had been present with Conner is that he felt so alone and lost after he stopped taking his medications during The Challenge. When all the patients in The Challenge got a letter from home, most everyone’s letter was a good, heartfelt, and emotional letter. Conner’s letter from home had been nothing like that at all. It was only filled with the expectations of having a perfect GPA, getting accepted into an Ivy League College, and the complaints about how he should be just like his twin sister Cara.
2) For the three main characters, there is a different type of conflict. Vanessa’s conflict is with her mom’s illness and also with herself. Conner’s conflicts were with his parents, Emily (his teacher and lover), his twin sister Cara, and also with himself. Tony’s conflicts were with his self, his mom, his mom’s past ex-boyfriends, and his dad.
3) Conner’s problems were never solved, but they ended we he made the decision to commit suicide by jumping off of a cliff. Vanessa’s conflicts were solved when it came to herself, although she does have the occasional thought of cutting, she doesn’t act upon the thoughts. Her conflict with her mom’s illness won’t really be solved, but she does deal with the fact of her mom having such an illness. Tony’s conflict with his mom and his mom’s ex-boyfriends have basically been dealt with, I think, because he wasn’t moving in with his mom after The Challenge. He would be living with his father, and he is currently still working out the conflicts with his dad. I am pretty sure that the conflicts with him have been solved due to Vanessa being in his life after they get released from Aspen Springs.
Plot/Main Idea:
1) Impulse has a setting of being within a psychiatric hospital for teens. This hospital is known as Aspen Springs. This is the main setting of the book “Impulse”. The plot within this story is that the teens that are being treated there are there because they had either tried to commit suicide, or they have been in situations where they may not have tried to commit suicide but were near the point of death.
2) I didn’t expect Conner to end his part of the story the way he did. I also didn’t expect that Tony, Vanessa, and Conner had all acted in the killing of someone, rather it was intentional or not. Tony had killed his mom’s boyfriend (at the time),