Be Grateful for Green

First of all, do not do a Google image search of suicide. There are some depressing stuff there. On an unrelated note, do me a favor and do not google "fistula" or "waffle".

Runyon has wanted to kill himself many, many times.
In the past, he had cut himself constantly, fantasized about blowing the house up, learned how to tie knots to potentially hang himself, and wrote his will while he was alone in his room. Now that he had actually attempted to fry himself in a manner not unsimilar to jumping into a explosive fire in a Michael Bay film, he regrets ever having thought of killing himself at all. As readers, we can very clearly see this change in the way he talks. In fact, his 'recovery' can be seen in his change of favorite color, which went from black (which he liked because it "reminded him of death") to... well, some other color. Green maybe. Something that is less death and more life. All in all, it's pretty realistic and vivid.

Speaking of realistic and vivid, on the last post, I mentioned that Runyon narrates the story as he felt it as a 14 year-old. Thanks to my English teacher, my reclarification was reclarified, and it can be summarized as the following: the story is narrated in present tense.
Well, that was simple, wasn't it. Turns out I didn't even need that one big paragraph last time.

Back to the book. It's very interesting. It's got everything: tragedy in the form of a burnt kid, comedy in the form of fifteen second farts, and happiness in its purest form in the form of ice cream and attractive nurses. Anyways, I felt happy or sad corresponding to Brent's feelings throughout the book. When he cried with his parents, I was moved; when he watched movies and ate a ginormous amount of ice cream with Tina (a nurse), I was happy; when he farted, I felt relieved. This variety of emotions mixed into the text made me wonder what the tone of the book might be. Is it wrathful? Probably not. If anything, it's a positive emotion. Uhh... romantic? He is thinking more about girls lately, but that's definitely not it. Perhaps optimistic? Appreciative? That sounds sort of right. He appreciates life a bit more now. I think. Right?

Well, I'm not putting this book down any time soon. I'm really eager to read the rest, since the guy in the photo of the back cover of the book looks normal and fully healed. Physically, at least.

Thank you, modern science.