Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

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?" @goodreads

MY REVIEW:

 

5 STARS 

Damn. All of Ellen's books are rough as hell. I love them, but they get right into your bones and tear you apart!

I have to share an excerpt from the book that I'm all too familiar with:

Some People
Never find the right kind of love.
You know, the kind that steals

your breathe away, like diving into snowmelt.
The kind that jolts your heart,

sets it beating apace, an anxious
hiccuping of hummingbird wings.

The kind that makes every terrible
minute apart feel like hours. Days.

Some people flit from one possibility
to the next, never experiencing the incredible

connection of two people, rocked by destiny.
Never knowing what it means to love

someone else more than themselves.
More than life itself, or the promise

of something better, beyond this world.
More even (forgive me) than God.

Lucky me. I found the right kind
of love. With the wrong person.

I feel so bad for these kids, it's so hard to be a child. I am going to tell you the names of these 5 kids, but I'm not saying which one is going through what exactly. You have Eden, Seth, Whitney, Ginger, and Cody.

Each of these children have a shitty home life, but in different ways.

One has a mother who is a hooker and there are 6 children which includes one of them. They all live with their grandma, two of them have the same dad, the others all have different dads, no dad comes around. One child is sold by their mother to their boyfriends for sex.. after the second time and the realization of this comes out, they run away with their best friend.

One child is gay, but can't tell their father or they will be shunned until the day the father reads a letter and kicks the kid out.

Another kid has a history of drugs in the family, loses a family member and has to find a way to pay all of the bills.

One child has a father that is a preacher and not the nice real preacher kind, the brimstone and.. well from what I read... torture kind of preacher.

And the final child has a mother that ignores them and lavishes their sister and a dad that comes home occasionally.

Now a couple of these kids are mistreated by their boyfriend or girlfriend.

All of these things lead to one thing... these kids are all on the run and they all in up in the most horrible of situations, hence the name of the book.

It's a vicious book, but great none-the-less. FYI: I would like to beat the shit out of every jerk in the book.. just saying. 

 GOODREADS REVIEW:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1393702575

AMAZON LINK TO THE BOOK:

http://www.amazon.com/Tricks-Ellen-Hopkins/dp/1416950087/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442775076&sr=1-1&keywords=tricks+in+books