Rumble

Written by Ellen Hopkins

Narrated by Kirby Heyborne

Does it get better? The New York Times bestselling author of Crank and Tricks explores the highly charged landscapes of bullying and forgiveness in this “strong and worthy” (Kirkus Reviews) novel.

Matthew Turner knows it doesn’t get better.

His younger brother Luke was bullied mercilessly after one of Matt’s friends outed Luke to the whole school, and when Luke called Matt—on the brink of suicide—Matt was too wrapped up in his new girlfriend to answer the phone. Now Luke is gone, and Matt’s family is falling apart.

No matter what his girlfriend Hayden says about forgiveness, there’s no way Matt’s letting those he blames off the hook—including himself. As Matt spirals further into bitterness, he risks losing Hayden, the love of his life. But when her father begins to pressure the school board into banning books because of their homosexual content, he begins to wonder if he and Hayden ever had anything in common.

With brilliant sensitivity and emotional resonance, bestselling author Ellen Hopkins’s Rumble explores bullying and suicide in a powerful story that examines the value of forgiveness and reconciliation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Dec 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781442385115

Ellen Hopkins

Ellen Hopkins is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of numerous young adult novels, as well as the adult novels such as Triangles, Collateral, and Love Lies Beneath. She lives with her family in Carson City, Nevada, where she has founded Ventana Sierra, a nonprofit youth housing and resource initiative. Follow her on Twitter at @EllenHopkinsLit.

Reviews for Rumble

[S. S. Yolken · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Rumble starts off slow, takes about ten pages to push forward. It's a very Bury Your Gays book, we're focused on the straight brother's point of view for the whole book, none of Hopkin's usual POV straying.

It's a touch funny the book back and the online summaries really enjoy pushing the "can an athiest be saved" angle with a touch of undertone like this book is about converting non-believers to religion. The actual book is more about how harmful and hateful religion can be. How hateful and mean to homosexuals and people of different orientations they are. The way religion destroys life more than helps it.

In the end it's spiritualism that trumps out in this book.

Matt is a decent character, though he is angry at the world a lot. Several of the lines said or thought by him are very unfitting for his age, but it's not awfully distracting until you keep thinking about how young he is to talk like that.

The side characters are good, none better than Alexa and uncle Jessie, but really Luke deserved to be a bigger focus. This book brings up a deceased gay sibling and how religion and mistakes cost his life and that's never resolved. It's a sad situation never dealt with, unlike how bullying people would be in real life. Luke deserved so much better in this book, but it was Matt's story, and his growth after Luke's death. An unfortunate usage of Bury Your Gays without more proper handling or repentance for Luke.

Cross post from Librarything and Goodreads.

[forsakenfates · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Matt has a terrible life by anyone’s standards. He has parents who were only together because of an accidental pregnancy who are constantly fighting and drinking excessively, a recently deceased brother, a relationship that is falling apart, depression, anxiety, etc. Reading this book was hard for me because of how horrible Matt was treated by those around him. Plus, for the most part he just dealt with it which was just sadder to me.

Throughout the book you learn that Matt’s brother was gay and committed suicide. This action basally leads Matt to lose his faith and no longer believe in a God. He writes this essay all about why God is not real that you get snippets of within the story. I really enjoyed those snippets because it gave the reader a better understanding of Matt and what was going on with him.

This is an Ellen Hopkins book, so it is written in verse. It is really different to read a book in verse, it is not something I have ever done before and it took some time to get used to it. But once I did it was not bad. The only thing that really bothered me was the lack of true dialogue. It was weird reading a book with such short sentences and pages.

Overall, this book dealt with some typically taboo themes and I really appreciated that Hopkins was tackling them. I enjoyed experiencing, through Matt’s eyes, how he dealt with all the negativity in his life and how he was able to come to terms with everything.

[megan_demers-714991 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Classic Ellen Hopkins.

[emily_anne-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I do love verse!