Tricks

Reader: Sabrina K
Age: 15
Title: Tricks
Author: Ellen Hopkins
Publisher: Simon & Shuster
Pub Date: 8/25/09
Galley: Yes
Nominate for Teens’ Top 10: Yes
Annotation: Five teenagers throughout the United States find themselves questioning what path to go on. Through the book each character has its own story on facing obstacles learning just how hard it is to make the right choices in life.
Recommend: Yes
Convince us to read the book: This book shows the extremes people will take for dealing with situation—in this case it is selling themselves.
Compelling Aspect of the Book: Every character had its own background story on how they ended up in Las Vegas and going into the prostitution business. Each character, one by one, came together, on their own journey, and how they came together was so unexpected.
Did the cover tempt you and/or reflect the contents of the book: The cover did tempt me to pick up the book—but the main reason I picked up the book was just the fact that Ellen Hopkins wrote it. The cover did reflect the content, but indirectly, which I think is very creative on that choice—not the obvious answer.
Comments: Nothing about this book was predictable, from the start you have no idea what's going to happen. That's one thing I love about Ellen Hopkin’s books, it gets more and more unpredictable. I also love that someone wrote about this topic—it opened my eyes to a whole new world I thought never existed.
Age Range: 16-17, 18 up
Quality: 5Q Hard to imagine a better book
Popularity: 5P Everyone wants to read it