Impulse

About Impulse

Impulse is a 2007 novel-in-verse by Ellen Hopkins, published by Margaret K. McElderry Books. The story is told through the alternating voices of three teenagers — Conner, Tony, and Vanessa — who meet at Aspen Springs, a residential psychiatric facility in Nevada, following individual suicide attempts.

Each character arrives carrying a different kind of damage. Conner is the son of high-achieving parents whose expectations he cannot meet; beneath his polished exterior he has spent years suffocating under pressure and performing a version of himself that has nothing to do with who he actually is. Tony grew up in poverty in a household shaped by abuse; his attempt was not impulsive so much as it was the last step of a slow erasure. Vanessa is a young woman whose grip on stability has been undermined by bipolar disorder and a series of destructive relationships; she has tried before, and she knows the terrain.

The three narrators do not simply share a ward — they form complicated, real relationships with each other. There is romantic feeling. There is competition for staff attention. There is the dark humor of people who have faced the worst and lived. Hopkins renders all of it in her characteristic verse form: long cascading lines, strategic white space, a rhythm that pulls the reader urgently forward.

Hopkins's Verse Form

At 666 pages, Impulse is one of Hopkins's longer works, though the verse format moves quickly. Her writing style is more than aesthetic — the line breaks and white space do emotional work, slowing the reader for emphasis, letting silences land where they need to. The three distinct voices are immediately distinguishable even when their situations echo each other.

Hopkins has said in interviews that she writes toward the readers who are not being seen — the teenagers whose lives are not reflected in the books they're handed in English class. Her body of work deals consistently with addiction, abuse, mental illness, sexuality, and survival. Impulse sits at the center of that work, a book that looks directly at suicidal ideation without flinching and without offering easy comfort.

Why It Has Been Banned

Impulse has been banned or challenged in 38 school districts across 8 states, including Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Challenges typically cite the book's depictions of suicide, its frank portrayal of mental illness, and its language and sexual content.

Mental health advocates and library organizations have consistently pushed back against these challenges, arguing that books like Impulse do not encourage self-harm — they do the opposite. For teenagers who are struggling, encountering a book that acknowledges the reality of what they are going through, and that follows characters who find their way toward reasons to stay alive, can be genuinely protective. Research on media and suicide does not support the idea that realistic depictions of suicidal experience lead to contagion; it supports the idea that connection and recognition are among the most important protective factors that exist.

The sequel to Impulse, Perfect, which follows siblings of the main characters, is also among the books Hopkins has had most frequently challenged.