Triangles: A Novel [Hardcover]

Ellen Hopkins (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 18, 2011

THREE FEMALE FRIENDS FACE MIDLIFE CRISES IN A NO-HOLDS-BARRED EXPLORATION OF SEX, MARRIAGE, AND THE FRAGILITY OF LIFE.

Holly: Filled with regret for being a stay-athome mom, she sheds sixty pounds and loses herself in the world of extramarital sex. Will it bring the fulfillment she is searching for?

Andrea: A single mom and avowed celibate, she watches her friend Holly’s meltdown with a mixture of concern and contempt. Holly is throwing away what Andrea has spent her whole life searching for—a committed relationship with a decent guy. So what if Andrea picks up Holly’s castaway husband?

Marissa: She has more than her fair share of challenges—a gay, rebellious teenage son, a terminally ill daughter, and a husband who buries himself in his work rather than face the facts.

As one woman’s marriage unravels, another’s rekindles. As one woman’s family comes apart at the seams, another’s reconfigures into something bigger and better. In this story of connections and disconnections, one woman’s up is another one’s down, and all of them will learn the meaning of friendship, betrayal, and forgiveness.

Unflinchingly honest, emotionally powerful, surprisingly erotic, Triangles is the ultimate page-turner. Hopkins’s gorgeous, expertly honed poetic verse perfectly captures the inner lives of her characters. Sometimes it happens like that. Sometimes you just get lost.

Get lost in the world of Triangles, where the lives of three unforgettable women intersect, and where there are no easy answers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Hopkins delivers a raw and riveting tale of love and forgiveness that will captivate readers." —Publisher's Weekly

“Though Hopkins is known mostly for her young-adult novels, her latest is an absorbing grown-up story, told in beautiful blank verse, about three friends with messy family and romantic lives.” —EW.com, "Must List" pick

About the Author

Ellen Hopkins is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Crank, Burned, Impulse, Glass, Identical, Tricks, Fallout, and Perfect, as well as the adult novels Triangles and Collateral. She lives with her family in Carson City, Nevada, where she has founded Ventana Sierra, a nonprofit youth housing and resource initiative. Visit her at EllenHopkins.com and on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter at @EllenHopkinsYA. For more information on Ventana Sierra, go to VentanaSierra.org.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Atria Books; First Edition edition (October 18, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451626339
• ISBN-13: 978-1451626339
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (105 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #211,284 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was adopted at birth and raised by a great, loving older couple. I grew up in Palm Springs CA, although we summered in Napa and Lake Tahoe, to avoid those 120 degree summers. After my adopted parents died, I did find my birth mother, who lives in Michigan with my half sister.

I studied journalism in college, but left school to marry, raise kids and start my own business--a video store, before the mega-chains were out there. After a divorce, I met my current husband and we moved to Tahoe to become ski bums and otherwise try to find our dreams. At that time, I went to work for a small alternative press, writing stories and eventually editing.

When we moved down the mountain to the Reno area, I started writing nonfiction books, many of which you can see here. The rest are viewable on my personal website. I also continued to freelance articles for newspapers and magazines.

All that has changed, with the publication of my novel, CRANK, which has led to a valued career writing YA novels in verse, all of which explore the more difficult situations young adults often find themselves in. Will I ever write one in prose? No doubt! But, for the moment, writing novels in verse fulfills two needs: writing poetry and writing fiction. The combination is so interesting!

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

(What's this?)

#68 in Books > Teens

#68 in Books > Teens

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars blunt yet graceful storytelling October 7, 2011

By Haley Mathiot VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

The thing about Ellen Hopkins is she writes about the stuff that everyone knows happens, but nobody is willing to admit to. She gives emotion and reason to why people make the choices we do, and what they feel like in the middle of a messy hurtful situation. She is the opposite of happyland syndrome. She tells it how it is.

I had read a little bit of Hopkins's work before: I started Crank (When I say started I mean read the first few pages) and loved it, but I was busy and never got the chance to get into it. But I got an ARC of Triangles, so I sat down and read it--and after one page I was hooked.

If you've been reading my blog at all, you know I'm not a person who likes stories about love gone wrong and marriages failing and extramarital sex etc. because I'm a Christian, and a romantic, and a softie (read 'wimp'). But I went ahead and dove into this book, because I knew Hopkins is a good writer.

It surpassed my expectations. I should have expected her to be this awesome, since obviously she's pretty famous and everyone else figured it out before I did, but I really am blown away. Not only by her blunt yet graceful storytelling, but by her nerve to tackle the stories nobody wants to tell: a dying child, a gay son, a pregnant teen, sexual disease, threesomes, a woman sleeping with her best friend's husband... it's all in here. Yet, it's not plot overkill. She made it work. Somehow.

Though, be warned. Since she does say it like it is, this book is not for the easily offended. But if you're willing to look past the content, there's a gem waiting for you about forgiveness, hope, and what love really means.

Content/recommendation: explicit sexual content, swearing. Ages 18+

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Triangles February 12, 2012

By Miss Lauren

Format:Hardcover

I have a steadfast love/hate relationship with this book. I hated how some of the women cheated. No one condones cheating, but this was a part of what the book was about. It was hard for me at first to feel for the women who had cheated. I'll admit, I was prejudiced towards them completely. I did what every reader does and related the characters to myself and for me, it just did not compute. But then my eyes started to open. These women suffered. They bore the grief of their families and tried so hard to numb the pain. Someone doesn't just wake up one day and say, "Hey! I'm going to cheat on my husband!" At least these women didn't. I'm sure there are plenty of people in the world who do wake up and think that, but that's a whole other discussion. I believe it takes small steps that eventually lead a normal person with morality to cheat. Once again, I do not think cheating is ok by any means at all, but after reading Triangles, I can see how small things in life can lead a person to cheat.

This was my first verse novel and just... wow. The stanzas, the poem-like writing worried me at first. I didn't want to read a book of poems. I discovered that verse novels are not like that by any means. Far from it, actually. Triangles read just like a prose novel. The words were simply... beautiful. This will definitely not be the only verse novel I will read.

I know that Ellen Hopkins' other books are all YA. I read how Ellen hopes Triangles, her first adult novel, will appeal to the people who grew up reading her YA novels are now adults. Even though this is the first novel I've read by her, I can't help but feel comforted that she thought of her readers like that... how she wanted her writing to transcend genres with us. I will definitely have to dive into her YA novels now!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Triangles - 3 Tales of Betrayal with Some Hope of Redemption October 26, 2011

By Regis Schilken

Format:Hardcover

Triangles: A Novel is a tale that is on the one hand psychologically disturbing, and on the other hand a story quite beautifully written. I say disturbing because the three main women in this tale all have very troubled marital and familial relationships that appear to be the product of troubled, misguided pasts and/or learned prejudice. The alleged impetus for such disturbing affairs is implied, if not stated as female mid-life crises.

As she turns forty, there is, Holly, who longs to be different, even though her marriage to a successful attorney has brought her the luxury of being a stay-at-home mother. Now, she seeks direction--she wants to explore her own ambitions--she wants to be noticed as more than a mere mother. She wants to be a provocative woman sought by men. In exploiting her sexuality, she loses sight of the very family she had raised. Her love and that of her husband grow increasingly distant.

In Triangles, there is single-mother, Andrea, who has lived what she feels is a high quality, yet lonely, life caring for an only child. She abhors the life of her voluptuous friend, Holly, yet at the same time, much like her friend, Andrea also seeks the admiration and closeness of a male sex partner. Unfortunately, in her loneliness, Andrea crawls into the vacant spot in Holly's sensual bed.

And finally, because she is so devoted to a daughter with a terminally debilitating condition, Marissa becomes a slave to her child's care. Marissa's husband shucks off his responsibility toward the sure-to-die child. He spends more and more evenings in his office and in Triangles, he too, establishes a long adulterous affair. In addition, he cannot warm to his maturing gay son who claims to be in love with another gay youth, possibly HIV positive.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the prose-like way Author Ellen Hopkins penned her book, following the dismal lives of three unsettled women, reminded me too much of a plod through The Valley of Tears. Am I the one missing the reality of women in mid-life crisis? Are there really that many married women who, at forty, discover their lives so deplete that they and their husbands seek extra-marital affairs?

What will happen to Holly, Andrea, and Marissa? Will their lives change? Triangles will offer some hope that once again, its characters become adjusted--contented. How? The answers to these questions I will leave to the reader of Triangles. I have no doubt that there will be readers who praise this tale because it shadows the plight of their own lives.

But I would hope there are far more women who are happy to be alive; women who are proud to have raised normally adjusted children; women who, after raising their family, decide that now is the time to begin a promising career and they seek a second rewarding life without desecrating their first one. On page 351 of Triangles, Author Ellen Hopkins alludes to this hope with her poem: A STAR RISES.

______A star rises.
______Pale. Frail, A stitch
______Of embroidered light
______Upon the dark forever
______Fabric of space

I would recommend Triangles to readers who like tales crammed with emotion, betrayal, angst, and hope. It is a moving tale; more because of the beauty of its prose, than it's distressing story.

This review was written by Regis Schilken, author of TEARS OF DECEIT.