Rumble

by Ellen Hopkins

[leahrosereads]

3.5 Stars

Poor, poor Luke. To feel like your life will never get better, that the bullies will always win, that no matter what you do, you cannot escape their cruel words and your fragile psyche is punctured and ripped day in and day out, until you can only just give up, is, I’m sure one of the worst, most isolated feelings someone could feel. Especially a kid at the beginning of his life. He should have only had to worry about school and grades, what games he was going to play when he got home, practice at basketball, and spend time with a loving family. However, that’s not what Luke had to worry about. He only worried about the taunts, the pictures, the cruelty that children in packs can be, and he had no one to turn to. The loving family had been broken long before, and Luke really had no one to turn to. He thought he had his brother, Matthew, but Matt told him to ignore it, that it would end or the kids would get bored. But, they didn’t, and in the end Luke couldn’t take it anymore.

I have never seen suicide as weak, or as a coward’s way out. I have only ever felt sorrow for those who’ve felt they had nothing left to gain in this world, and so why stay?


RUMBLE is the story of Matt following Luke’s suicide. The older brother carrying the weight of his brother’s death on his shoulders, the guilt turning into an anger and hatred towards himself, those that bullied Luke, God, his family and faith itself. We seem him as this angry teenager and he progresses to, well, still an angry teenager, but at least he heals throughout the story.


The characters of the story in RUMBLE, were for the most part, extremely realistic to me. From Matt’s self loathing and anger to Hayden’s Christian fundamentalist beliefs, it all really felt accurate.

My favorite character was Alexa, an ex-friend of Hayden’s who becomes extremely important to Matt and his learning to forgive. She was down to earth and a friend first, though she made it no secret to Matt that she loved him. Although I’m usually against love triangles, since my thoughts of Hayden really early on were negative (and accurate), I liked where Hopkins went with Matt’s love interest. He needed someone like Alexa.

The parents in this story were pretty much non-existent, but there were a couple of adults that played very important parts in Matt’s life, namely his uncle and aunt. I really liked them, and thought that they inadvertently adopted their nephew, when Matt’s parents were so disconnected with his (and their own) lives.


Overall, I really liked this novel, and while I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, I definitely think it’s a decent book, and if you want some YA angst, coming of age kind of story, maybe give RUMBLE a try.