Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

Five teenagers from different parts of the country. Three girls. Two guys. Four straight. One gay. Some rich. Some poor. Some from great families. Some with no one at all. All living their lives as best they can, but all searching...for freedom, safety, community, family, love. What they don't expect, though, is all that can happen when those powerful little words "I love you" are said for all the wrong reasons.

Not what you'd call a happy-go-lucky book, this one.  Ellen Hopkins explores, in her trademark free-verse style, the many and varied reasons that teenagers end up in prostitution.

The story is set around the US but focuses on Las Vegas and is told through the eyes of a number of teenagers who each tell their stories.  Spoiler alert: none of the stories are happy ones.

I rooted (if you can call it that) for some of the characters more than others.  Seth was an idiot.  I wasn't really a fan of his.  The others I felt sorry for in varying degrees, but they were all very human.  Although there are five viewpoints going on here, it never felt too cluttered and I moved from one story to another and back again quite seamlessly.

The writing is incredibly intense - I felt like I'd been wrung out by the end and the characters haunted me (and not in a good way) afterwards for a while.

All five characters' stories are wrapped up at the end, for good or bad, and there was the sense of an ending.

4 stars