Reviews

Smoke by Ellen Hopkins

Only show reviews with written explanations

allieskat17's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

An amazing continuation of pattyns story. We all fell in love for pattyn in burned and our hearts broke at the ending. Due to appeals from her fans Ellen Hopkins wrote this sequel. In this book we follow both pattyn and her sister Jackie dealing with the aftermath of Ethan’s death. Jackie gets assaulted and in stopping him pattyn and Jackie wind up without a father. Pattyn goes on the run while Jackie deals with the fallout at home. This story is full of twists and the ending just feels perfect

lexythebookworm_'s review against another edition

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4.0

4 ⭐️

"Blamed for her abusive father's death and haunted by the loss of her boyfriend and their unborn child, Patty Von Stratten is on the run. Aboard a bus destines for California, she makes friends with Adriana, a young girl whose family helps her find work as a housekeeper for the Jorgensens, a wealthy ranch-owning family. Pattyn sets out to build a new life under a false identity, but she is overwhelmed by feelings of loss and guilt and questions her ability to build new relationships and establish a new existence. Back home, her younger sister is the sole person who knows what happened in the shed that day, but Jackie is haunted by troubles of her own. Her mother, for one, refuses to accept reality and the role Caleb played in the death of the girl's father. Smoke, the much anticipated sequel to Burned, brings closure to one girl's heart-wrenching journey."

Ellen Hopkins has a unique style that I honestly like a lot. It is not only entertaining to read because of the content but because of the presentation of it. She presents her words not only as such but also as images and has some clever twists with the page layouts and the way the content is distributed, hiding some messages by doing this or just illustrating a scene with the printed words on the page.

I really got hooked with the first book of this biology, Burned, and suffered all the way through the story with it's characters.
Same happened to me with this second part, but just a bit less I guess, because I liked the story of the first one better. I enjoyed it a lot and read it in just a few days and just a few sittings. The story has some unexpected twists that really made me tell myself "hang in there, breathe" while suffering through the events while being completely shook on the book. I liked reading the evolution of the main characters a lot, really got me into trying to put myself in their shoes and live their journeys with them.
There is a lot of physical, verbal and sexual abuse in both books, there's no argument in abuse being the main theme here. On the author's note you can read the following: "I should not have stayed as long as I did, but like many women, I thought if I only did the right things, I could fix him. It rarely works out that way." She also states how we should always speak up and get away of any abusive or toxic relationship the moment we notice it is and how we should always help someone out of it as well, without further waiting.
However, even though abuse is all over it's pages, it is not a book that brings you trauma to read. It's actually pretty light. So I would recommend it to everyone and personally argument that abuse victims could also read it with no PTSD associated with doing so. And I think this is a really nice input from the author into abuse related literature.

epilieaspiechick's review

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dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

My full review can be found on the Epilie Aspie Chick blog!

The first book is told exclusively from Pattyn's perspective, although she gives you a clear indicator of how her entire family functions. In the second book, that consequences of the first book play out with a dual narrative between Pattyn and her younger sister, Jackie. These two have their own traumas to face in their own way, but are similar in impact.

tabatha_shipley's review

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3.0

What I Didn’t Like:
-The audiobook loses some of the poetry. This entire book is written in poems, like the previous book Burned. But the audiobook loses some of that magic. I got glimpses of it occasionally, but for the most part it was lost.
-Similar to the previous book. The storyline felt the same, the emotions felt the same. While I enjoyed the first one, I wanted something different for this book. I wanted this sequel to add something to the series and it just didn’t do that.
-The ending. I wasn’t a fan of this ending at all. To be fair, I like endings that make me think and go in an interesting way (like the first one of this series). This one felt a little too perfect for my tastes.

What I Did Like:
-The poetic language. I had to take a look at the print version to appreciate the magic, but it is there. The language is nice, the blank space is used effectively, and the poetry is good. That’s the real magic of this series.
-The struggles with religion. I like the underlying questioning of what they believe here from the main characters. A lot of books will shy away from this discussion but the girls faced it head on. The church they were raised in might not be the one for them and I like that they’re questioning that on the page for other teens.
-The romance is cute without being overdone. It’s realistic and adorable without being too hot and heavy.

The Verdict: 3 Stars. I still love this poetry and the idea of telling a story with poems.