In her bestselling novel, Tricks, Ellen Hopkins introduced us to five memorable characters tackling these enormous questions: Eden, the preacher’s daughter who turns tricks in Vegas and is helped into a child prostitution rescue Seth, the gay farm boy disowned by his father who finds himself without money or resources other than his own body Whitney, the privileged kid coaxed into the life by a pimp and whose dreams are ruined in a heroin haze Ginger, who runs away from home with her girlfriend and is arrested for soliciting an undercover cop and Cody, whose gambling habit forces him into the life, but who is shot and left for dead. This provides a very natural sense of delivery, as if the five stories are being delivered without reflection, just the words of the moment.Five teens victimized by sex trafficking try to find their way to a new life in this riveting companion to the New York Times bestselling Tricks from Ellen Hopkins, author of Crank. Her lines flow smoothly into one another, sometimes between stanzas. The poetry is a vehicle, one Hopkins has under firm control. Each narrator has a different rhythm, but still a simple rhythm. LGBT youth are much more likely to be pressured into prostitution, particularly survival sex. At the same time, I do think she under-represents LGBT youth, despite two of the narrators being gay. His life is kept under strict control and he doesn't have the power to say no. Seth ends up a high-class kept boy, but she doesn't glamorize his situation.
Hopkins also puts in the effort to show different situations that could lead to sex work and different types of sex work. And, of course, all of their lives end up touching on the sex trade. Several of the narrators end up hooked on drugs. Seth and Ginger are both abused sexually as children. That doesn't mean the subject matter isn't brutal. This is not 600 pages of endless degradation. Hopkins takes her time setting up each teenager's story.
They're located throughout the US, from differing economic situations, and differing home stability. Cody Bennett is losing his beloved stepfather to cancer and thinks that his family will be okay if he can just win the next bet. Ginger Cordell is crushing on her classmate Alexis and crushed by her irresponsible mother, who is a hooker. Whitney Lang just wants someone to notice her instead of her perfect older sister. Eden Streit is a preacher's daughter and knows that she has to keep her atheist boyfriend a secret. Seth Parnell is stifled on his dad's Indiana farm, and seeks escape with an older boyfriend in the (bigger) city.
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