Bookverdict.com

Gr 8-Up One February day in 1991, Runyon came home from eighth grade, had a snack, soaked his full-length bathrobe in gasoline, and set himself on fire. He intended to kill himself. Everything shortly after is written in short bursts as the author takes readers in and out of his various states of consciousness: the helicopter ride; the parade of nurses, doctors, therapists, and orderlies at Children's Hospital in Washington, DC, and the regimented details of his care divided among them; and the pain of the burns on 85 percent...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

In 1991, when Brent Runyon was fourteen, he doused his bathrobe in gasoline, draped it over his shoulders, and lit a match. Before then, he had tried several times to commit suicide. "I've got to think of a way to kill myself that I can't turn back from," he remembers thinking before making the decision that would leave him with second- and third-degree burns over eighty-five percent of his body. This candid memoir recounts the year following the fire—eight months of which Brent spends in two different hospitals—in riveting det...Log In or Sign Up to Read More