Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
Summary: this story tells us about five teenagers who live in different parts of the U.S.A and have unique life stories. There are 3 girls and 2 boys. Eden Streit is a daughter of a religious zealot, and she dates with a boyfriend unsuitable for her father. Seth Parnel is a boy whose mother died from cancer a year and a half ago and he suffers from an internal struggle concerning his sexuality. Another character Cody Bennet has never met his biological father and spends most of the time with his step-father Jack. Whitney Lang, is a girl who cannot find a common language with her mother and sister; the only person Whitney adores is her father. Last but not least, Ginger Cordell – a girl who was raped in an early childhood and these recollections still make her frantic . Despite the fact that these characters are very young and green, they are left to fend for themselves. Modern society treats them in a harsh and severe way.
The wretched youngsters are stuck in a rut and it makes them try all the possible ways in order to survive: drugs, sex, escape from reality, gambling, prostitution etc. Eden’s parents are obsessed with religion so they send their daughter to Tears of Zion, where she gets acquainted with Jerome – a guy who will help her to escape from that awful place. Seth appears to be a gay and his father routs him out of home. Whitney’s boyfriend Lucas leaves her after taking her virginity and she has nothing to do but to go to Vegas. Ginger is raped again by one of her mother’s boyfriend and her only remedy is leaving for Vegas with her friend Alex; she cannot stand this abuse anymore. The situation of Coddy is not better – his step-father died from a cancer and the boy has to depend on himself - alone against the entire world.
Evaluation: without a doubt, Tricks by Ellen Hopkins is worth reading. The author unveils all the intimate details of teenagers’ lives and appeals to the reader’s emotions because every life story is heartbreaking and touchable. These five total strangers have something in common – all of them make wrong decisions in order to keep their head above water. The novel is written in free verse poetry, and such a way of organization creates better understanding of the text and helps to grasp the most important ideas. I think that the main leitmotif of the novel is the burden of choice which becomes the reason for hesitation, inner turmoil and emotional upheaval. While reading Tricks you constantly feel the recurrent theme of sadness and gone hopes which can even makes you feel depressed. But, to my mind, reading such a novel is the best way to see what paths we should not take. The author tries to plunge into subconscious world of the characters by separating words from the stanzas; …
