Yes, Impulse Is Banned!

Ellen Hopkins’s Impulse brings together three teenagers in Aspen Springs psychiatric facility, each recovering from a suicide attempt. Tony is a bisexual teen from a group home. Vanessa is a dancer who cut too deep. Connor is a golden boy whose perfection was a mask. The novel traces their treatment, their growing connections with each other, and the hard work of deciding whether to live. Hopkins writes about suicide without sensationalizing it and without offering false reassurance that everything will be okay. The book is used in therapeutic settings and has been credited by readers with saving their lives.

Impulse was challenged 10 times in the 2024-2025 PEN America data, with bans in Florida, Iowa, and Tennessee school districts. The challenges cite sexual content, LGBTQ+ themes, drug use, and depictions of suicide, the last of which puts the book in a particularly fraught category. Concerns about suicide contagion are legitimate, but Hopkins consulted mental health professionals while writing the book, and it includes crisis resources. The American Library Association and multiple mental health organizations have defended Impulse as a book that reduces stigma around mental illness and suicide. Teens who are suicidal don’t become suicidal from reading a book; they become less isolated.