Author | Ellen Hopkins |
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Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Young adult |
Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date
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August 25, 2009 |
Pages | 640 |
Tricks is a young adult verse novel by Ellen Hopkins, released in August 2009. It tells the converging narratives of five troubled teenage protagonists. The novel is noted for its gritty realism in addressing issues of sexual activity and drug use for a young adult readership. This book has also been banned due to drug uses, sexual themes, and language.
In the novel Tricks, the story begins with five teenagers, all residing in various parts of the United States. The first character, Eden Streit, lives with her father, mother, and younger sister, Eve. Being a daughter of a minister also comes with expectations, such as not dating until marriage and marrying men within the Christian faith. But for Eden, that doesn’t matter with Andrew, her boyfriend. Her only problem is trying to keep their relationship a secret from her parents. The second character, Seth Parnel, lives with his father after his mother dies from cancer a year and a half ago. Seth struggles with identifying his sexuality after he breaks up with his girlfriend, Janet Winkler. He meets Loren and is catapulted into a new kind of relationship. The third character, Cody Bennet, doesn’t know who his biological father is and spends his time with his step-father Jack. Jack hasn’t been feeling well, and Cody starts to drink. The fourth character, Whitney Lang, lives with her mother, while her father works and lives in another city nearby and her sister, Kyra, attends college. Whitney is disconnected with her mother and likes when her dad is home since she sees him as her hero. Whitney hooks up with Lucas at one of Kyra’s performances and they hit it off, but she still worries about committing to the relationship with him. The fifth character, Ginger Cordell, encounters rape from an early childhood and deals with keeping these secrets from her family. Ginger’s only friend is Alex, and she has begun questioning how she feels about her.
Eden’s parents finds out about her relationship with Andrew, and assumes that she is being controlled by the devil, and so she is sent to Tears of Zion. There, she is being kept in captivity and forced to do work that would supposedly rid her of evil. She starts giving a worker named Jerome sex in exchange for food, shampoo, and other treats. She hopes that Jerome can be the key to her escape. Loren moves away and leaves Seth, and Seth’s dad finds out he is gay, so he kicks him out of the house. He goes to live with Carl, an older man he met at a bar, and moves with him to Vegas as his companion. Lucas leaves Whitney by dumping her after taking her virginity, and she turns to Bryn for support. She gives herself to him, and leaves her family to move with him to Vegas for his photography business. Ginger’s brother, Sandy, is run over by a motorcycle, and Gram goes with him to the hospital. Ginger is raped again by one of her mother’s boyfriends, and she finds out that Iris is charging them to have sex with her. She takes her mother’s money and leaves with her friend, Alex, and they go to stay with Alex’s aunt, Lydia, in Vegas. Cody’s step-father, Jack, dies from cancer, and Cody takes on the responsibility of paying for bills. He gets deep into online gambling, drifting away from Ronnie, whom he believes he loves.