Tricks [Hardcover]

Ellen Hopkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 2009

"When all choice is taken from you, life becomes a game of survival."

Five teenagers from different parts of the country. Three girls. Two guys. Four straight. One gay. Some rich. Some poor. Some from great families. Some with no one at all. All living their lives as best they can, but all searching...for freedom, safety, community, family, love. What they don't expect, though, is all that can happen when those powerful little words "I love you" are said for all the wrong reasons.

Five moving stories remain separate at first, then interweave to tell a larger, powerful story -- a story about making choices, taking leaps of faith, falling down, and growing up. A story about kids figuring out what sex and love are all about, at all costs, while asking themselves, "Can I ever feel okay about myself?"

A brilliant achievement from New York Times best-selling author Ellen Hopkins -- who has been called "the bestselling living poet in the country" by mediabistro.com -- Tricks is a book that turns you on and repels you at the same time. Just like so much of life.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up—Five teens desperately seek to find their way through the darkness in Hopkins's latest epic novel in verse. Eden flees an evangelical household; Cody blocks out a family illness with gambling and sex; Whitney gives up her body in exchange for the love she finds so elusive; Seth struggles to define himself as a homosexual; and Ginger comes to terms with an awful truth about her neglectful mother. Burden after burden piles on the teens' shoulders until they resort to the unthinkable in order to survive. As they near rock bottom, their narratives begin to intersect. It is only when their paths converge that a glimmer of redemption appears out of the hopelessness. From the punch delivered by the title, to the teens' raw voices, to the visual impact of the free verse, Hopkins once again produces a graphic, intense tale that will speak to mature teens.—Jill Heritage Maza, Greenwich High School, CT END

About the Author

Ellen Hopkins is the New York Times bestselling author of Triangles. Also a bestselling young adult writer, her novels are praised by teens and adults alike. She lives with her family in Carson City, Nevada. Be sure to visit Ellen Hopkins online at ellenhopkins.com; myspace/com/ellenhopkins; and twitter.com/ellenhopkinsYA.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 640 pages
• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books; 1 edition (August 25, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416950079
• ISBN-13: 978-1416950073
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.4 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #137,102 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!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hopkins' Most Ambitious Novel to Date, September 28, 2009

By 

Teenreads.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tricks (Hardcover)

In her five previous novels, which focus on such timely and disturbing social phenomena as sexual abuse, attempted suicide and methamphetamine use, Ellen Hopkins cuts through propaganda and politics to get to the emotional heart of the often controversial subjects she explores. In TRICKS, her most ambitious novel to date, Hopkins uses her free verse style to great effect as she explores the different routes taken by five teens to the same desperate solution: prostitution.

Hopkins utilizes slightly different styles for each of her five subjects, a distinction that will probably go unnoticed by many readers, especially once they become absorbed in each person's story. She also provides transitions between narrators by repeating key words, further expressing the connections among these young people even before the plot does so. Although these stylistic niceties are subtle, the differences among Hopkins's subjects are not, and readers will likely have no trouble distinguishing the teens' narrative voices because their stories are so singular.

Eden is the daughter of a fundamentalist preacher in Idaho, whose parents send her to a religious rehabilitation camp, where she falls in love with a non-believer and trades sexual favors with a prison guard to try to secure her freedom. Seth is an Indiana farm boy who comes out to his father in the wake of his first gay love affair, only to be thrown out of the house and into the arms of a wealthy but demanding and manipulative older lover. Whitney is a typical wealthy teen from Santa Cruz; when her first serious relationship fails, her insecurities and desire for affection connect her with a charismatic older man who promises her love but may not have her best interests at heart. For Ginger, prostitution runs in the family; she doesn't respect her prostitute mother, and she knows she has to escape (even if it means abandoning her younger siblings) when her mom starts pimping Ginger herself out to clients in search of someone younger. Cody lives in Las Vegas, so it's not surprising that he turns to gambling when a health emergency and family death lead to financial strains; when online poker and sports betting force him deeper into debt, however, Cody becomes desperate enough to perform acts he never would have imagined before.

Hopkins's writing is striking and shocking partly because of the juxtaposition of lyricism and lewdness in each person's story. Each teen starts his or her short section with a poem summing up thematic or narrative concerns: "You stand in front of me, / Pretending to be solid, / but you're nothing / more than smoke and mirrors." These thoughtful, lyrical passages stand in stark contrast to the scenes of graphic sex, drug use and desperation that eventually characterize each subject's narratives. Readers will be alternately titillated and horrified by the encounters Hopkins describes in brief but explicit detail, and will frequently find themselves both repelled by the wretched situations she recounts and unable to turn away from the seeming inevitability of the outcomes. For some of the kids, the outcomes are bleak indeed; for others, hope shines --- or at least glints --- through the closing pages.

TRICKS is a must-read for anyone hoping to understand the wildly varying, but all-too-common, paths that lead to the dead-end desperation of teen prostitution.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunted, September 13, 2011

By 

Ash - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tricks (Hardcover)

I just finished the book, and I have to admit that I desperately flipped through the last few blank pages hoping to find more. I warn you all now, the latter half of this review may end up with spoilers. If it does, I'll let you know with asterisks and pretty little caps.

First of all, I'm not an experienced Hopkins reader. I read another one of her books from my library (I'm pretty sure it was Impulse? Staring Tony, and two others in a suicide rehab clinic)

So going in to Tricks I sort of knew what to expect. Gritty, honest writing, emotion, and heartbreak.

Lots of people complain about two things in this book. One, universal with Hopkins it seems, it the writing style. I will admit I was also victim to the old mistake of opening it up, assuming it was poetry, and putting it down. Please, if You pick this book up, give it a chance! It's written in verse, but outside the "A Poem By ___" openers it's all straight prose divided in crafty line breaks that drive subtle points home.

Another thing is that people complain it's just too graphic. I'm sorry, but you're reading about love, heartbreak, and eventual prostitution. People say it's too detailed, and it disturbs them. Imagine how the ones who LIVE this kind of thing feel. When you're being raped there is no neat way to avoid the gritty truth and details. There's no way to forget the smell of sex or scrape away enough skin in the shower to ever feel clean. Hopkins takes that feeling of desperation, fear, and the thoughts of "who will want me now" and instills this into her book.

So if you don't want to feel like someone's gripping your heart with cold fingers, don't read this. If you're light stomached or can't take the truth of what's really happening in this world, this book isn't for you. But I urge anyone else. EVERYONE else to give it a chance. This book unveils the topics people skirt around. Too many people refuse to talk about this. About sex, teenagers, choices. Perhaps that's the cause of half the situations that lead down roads ending in heroine and prostitution? Read this. Parents and teenagers alike. Read it together, even. It's powerful. Honest. It will strike you at your core, pry you open, and place every heart-wrenching line into your deepest corners.

Even the opening poems in this story had me in tears at some points.

Overall I think the entire book is a work of true art. It shines light on the dark corners of reality and opens -at least for me- your soul up to the pain of people. Sometimes, people who will never even know someone cares about them.

*SPOILERS AHOY*

I swear, after this, the next time I see someone tripped out on a street corner looking to score, I'll think of Whitney. When I see strippers at a club I'll be thinking of Ginger. When I see that girl being preached at by her parents, my heart will return to Eden.

To Cody, and Seth, and even the minor characters. Andrew, Alex, even Gram and all her love. My heart goes out not only to these fictional characters, but to people I've never met before. It's simple stunning that something as simple as a book has me in tears, wanting to run outside down the street and find someone. Hug someone. Let a stranger cry on my shoulder.

Ellen Hopkins, if you ever somehow read this by a freaky miracle, I want you to know you've touched a very personal part of me. I wept, and smiled, and cheered, and cursed at every page of your hard work. Message delivered. Thank you.

My one, and only meager complaint is that it felt like it ended all too soon. I'm so used to books that reach the end and keep going, wrapping everything up with a tidy bow. I actually had to go back, reading some of the last entries from characters over and over, having to drill into myself "this is it. This is the last time you'll see this person in writing". Honestly, that just broke my heart. I wanted to find these people, five, ten, fifteen years down the road and see where they were. How they were. Some endings, like Whitney's, I just was left with questions.

But really, I think that's a good thing. Life doesn't ever just happily wrap up with a ribbon. It goes on, changes, and shifts. Any happy ending is only temporary after all, and things will always move forward.

Just like you said Cody, "Life is a gamble after all".

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful, chilling read, August 25, 2009

By 

The Compulsive Reader (Big Rapids, MI, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Tricks (Hardcover)

Eden, Seth, Whitney, Ginger, and Cody are five teens, from all over the country. They may be as different as anyone could be, but they all have something in common: they want to be loved. But their pursuit of love and happiness isn't always smooth, and very quickly each teen finds themselves in a place they don't want to be, a place they never expected to be, each of them turning tricks. What starts out as five separate stories slowly intertwines to become one story about sticking to what you believe in, standing up for yourself, and ultimately growing up.

As always with Ellen Hopkins' books, Tricks is one that will make you cringe but at the same time have you so tightly under its spell that it is impossible to stop reading. Tricks is intriguing at first as Hopkins introduces readers to her five diverse, painfully honest, and flawed characters. You can't help but connect with at least one of them in one way, shape or form. You even have high hopes for them and their happy ending, even as you can see that something terrible and heartbreaking is in store for them, and see them stumble into it. Tricks is not for the faint of heart; Hopkins gives readers a realistic and hard look at each one's life, not leaving out a single thing. She demonstrates to readers that there aren't any happy, perfect endings, but there is a way out, and all you need to do is ask. Tricks is a powerful, chilling read with a cast of gripping characters that takes a look at how they deal when forced into unthinkable circumstances.

Cover Comments: This cover is actually pretty plain, but keeps in style with the covers of Ellen Hopkins' other books. So that in itself usually makes it distinguishable, but really I think it's pretty unremarkable. I'm trying to figure out what the cover is supposed to be...it looks like fire one minutes and then a red sheet the next. Oh well, it does it's job well! (Edited to add: I just saw a finished copy--very impressive! It looks much nicer than the picture!)