Book Review #9

Tricks
By Ellen Hopkins

Review: Tricks is a story of 5 teenagers, Eden, Cody, Seth, Ginger, and Whitney,  whose lives have caused them to start working some sort of prostitution setting. Each individual has their own story to tell, and sometimes their paths cross which I thought was really interesting. Something I noticed was a common spelling mistake throughout the book. When they would spell shirt, it would come out shift. I don’t know if it was supposed to be meant to say shift and it’s just another word for shirt, but it was odd and in places made no sense. I noticed a few small errors here and there but for the most part it wasn’t too bad.

We see their lives go from not so perfect, to complete and utter disaster. Hopkins Knows how to tell a story and keep people entertained. The book had me constantly wanting to read it. I would read for short bursts and have to put it down because of class, and I wouldn’t want to put it down, just keep reading to find out what’s going to happen next.

This book is a fast read, and it does leave me wanting more to find out how their lives all turned out after and what happened, but with any book I’m always left to wonder. I love when that happens that way I can just make it up in my head, sometimes it’s better to not know and leave things alone. That way the story will remain the same no matter what and it won’t loose its luster.

Tricks is a great story, however a bit graphic in it’s sexual description to be a young adult novel. That was something I noticed in especially Cody’s story. Not that I’m saying sex in a young adult novel is bad, I just think it could have been a little more subtle than what it was. Regardless of that, Tricks was still fantastic, and I can’t wait for the next Ellen Hopkins novel!