Black.

Reading this book was just like Half a Life, i was only in the first page and I already knew what was going to happen. In The Burn Journals, it is written with different kind of style. In Darin Strauss's book he starts saying "Half my life ago, I killed a girl" meanwhile in Brent Runyon's book the fact that he tried to commit suicide by turning himself on fire in the first page is implied plus not explicit.

Something that really intrigued me about the first twenty pages of the book was Brent's attachment to the color black. "I grab my black book bag and head out the door" page 5. "I'm going to wear all black today" page 4. "...a black blazer, black silk shirt, black dress pants, and a black tie..." page 11. These are just some of the situations that in only twenty pages, he confronted with this color. I wonder if he really has everything black or that's just the way he sees his things after the accident or at least how he recalls it. I believe it is because of how in the first page he says that when he taked a bath it was as he had a black cloud over his head and this was after the accident. I even consider black as the color of death. Maybe there is a deep meaning to this black thing that's going on that we're going to get to understand later on the book.

If you haven't read the book, you probably don't know what led an 8th grader to attempt suicide. If you feel like knowing the dumbest reason, then keep on reading, if not just close the tab. This kid called Brent Runyon got some matches, lit all the box and burned a shirt that was in the gym. The teacher said, he knew the person that did it was from his period and that the guilty person would be spelled but he had until the end of the period to give the person that did it time to confess. Yes. That was the reason. He tried to commit suicide various time and none where successful until the last one but I guess he saw that tunnel to the light that said death and decided it was not his destiny. I have always asked myself the question of why commit suicide? But it's even more worrying that someone of approximately 14 years old would try to do something and with not even a valid reason. I guess that everyone has that one thing that throws them of the edge, and the fact of getting expelled was his.