A book review of Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

I wanted to like this.  Sort of.  My mom picked it out at the library, and she's really good at picking books I like.  And it's a book written in verse-I love poetry.  Yes, I admit, my standards for poetry are ridiculously high, but this didn't even start to measure up to what I normally read.  Maybe I've read too much Emily Dickenson. 

In Tricks, it seemed like all the characters were nearly the same.  They either do something their parents don't like, don't like their parents and fight with them constantly, or get rejected by their parents.  Then, four out of five of the characters run away.  Not just running away to a friend's house, no, they run away to Vegas.  Except for the character who already lives there, because he's in the right place to be able to meet other characters. 

For the first twenty pages, I liked it a little.  Then, after two hundred pages I was sick of it.  I made myself finish it because I had already taken so much time to read two hundred pages, I might as well finish it.  After three hundred pages, I put it on my windowsill and forgot about it for a few weeks.  A few nights ago I decided to finish it, just to get it over with. 

For a while, I even considered skimming the chapters about the characters I was interested in and seeing what happened to them.  I am glad that I read all of the book instead of skipping some, but only because if I hadn't read Cody's parts, I wouldn't know who Misty was, and she came up in other later chapters. 

Maybe I didn't like it because I couldn't identify with the characters.  At all.  Ever.  They would drink or do drugs, and I would never drink underage or do drugs.  Ever.  No matter what.  They were also very concerned about having a boyfriend, and one of them even ran away with a boy she barely knew.  Seriously, who does that?  That's the sort of storyline Lifetime Channel movies are made of. 

Also, I wanted a little bit more detail about what happened after the story ended.  Like, what happened to Cody?  Was Whitney okay?  And a little more about Ginger's future would have been nice. 

I don't plan on reading any other books by this author.  Actually, I plan on looking through my bookshelf to find Neverwhere and reading that again instead.  

A letter to my library books

                Dear library books (Anna Dressed in Blood, Lockwood and Co. The Screaming Staircase, Emily the Strange: The Lost Days, etc.),

                I am terribly sorry to inform you that my box set of the Modern Faerie Tales series by Holly Black arrived in the mail yesterday.  Since I've been waiting not-so-patiently for these books to get to my mail box, I will be reading all of them.  The only times I will stop reading them will be to do pointless things like sleep, eat, and drive places. (Because if I read in the car I get sick to my stomach.  I wish I had the audio-books.)  One of my goals for this year is to read all of Holly Black's books, so, since none of you are written by Holly Black, I'm not going to read you yet. 

                Another reason why I'm reading Tithe, instead of you, is because of one very simple reason:  It's fantasy.  I read fantasy even more than I eat chocolate, and that's saying something.  Yes, most of you have ghosts and one of you has feral black cats and amnesia, but I would rather read about elves with bluey-silvery hair which sprang from Holly Black's imagination.  I didn't even insist on plugging my iPod into my radio to listen to music (my normal reading situation) when I was reading Tithe last night.  I read until well past midnight (nothing weird there).  Yes, I did surrender to sleep until I had to get up and do something, but dreams of elves and magic and white cats filled my head while I slept. 

                I really am sorry.  Really.  But you know how I am when I get new books about faeries. These books are even better than normal books about faeries because these books are by Holly Black!  What did you think I would do!?!? 

                I can't say enough that I'm terribly sorry, but, in a way, I'm not sorry at all.  I'll really try to finish reading one or more of you, but if I can't finish Tithe fast enough (which I can, but if I get the flu or something and sit on the couch like a slug for a few days-just like on Christmas, happy day-I might not be able to read because I'll be sleeping like a slug.  But even if I have to sleep, I'm going to literally hold my eyes open and read.) I might have to return you to the library unread, but at least you will have lots of other books to keep you company. 

                I really am sorry, sort of...  Okay, I'm not as sorry as I keep saying I am, but I will read you at some point...  I think. 

                Blueshoe

                P.S.  Dear Spellcheck

                Bluey is a word, no matter what you think.  Also, all of your suggestions for what I might want to write instead of bluey are terrible.  What would bluesy hair be anyway?