Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

I'm sure everyone has at least heard about Hopkins new book. If not, then they are in for another tour de force about teens in serious trouble...all in verse. Readers will find themselves at the beginning of the throes of first love - and the pain that sometimes, and for these characters, inevitably happens. But it's more how each teen deals with the absence of love that begins their personal descent into hell...

Eden and her love for Andrew without parental consent

Whitney experiences first love, which is more than her dyfunctional family ever gave her

Seth, who accepts himself , but doesn't know if his father can

Ginger has only known "tough love" but follows the tenderness of her first real love

Cody has love in his life, but death and his own traps lead him down the dark path

Only one is a resident of Las Vegas, but the others -from all over the country - make it their final destination....

This is a gut-wrenching book, and honestly, one I had to put down a couple of times just to shake my head and say NO out loud. I was lost in the prose, and only hoped for redemption at the end. The only other book that made me feel this way was Scott's Living Dead Girl.
Some may see this as graphic, others will again enjoy Hopkins' way of dealing with the starkness of some teens' lives...it is haunting....