(164)Triangles by Ellen Hopkins

Wednesday, October 19, 2011


Triangles

Publication Date: October 18, 2011
Pages: 544


Right off the bat I need to say that this is NOT your teen's Ellen Hopkins.  The cover alone hints at the fact that this book is not Ellen Hopkin's typical YA novel.  Instead I should say you need to take extra precautions that this novel does not fall into the hands of your teens or you will be in for a looooot of questions.

Triangles is a story about three women, told in typical Ellen Hopkins poetry style.  There is Holly, a woman on the brink of 40 and in search of something that even she can not define.  Andrea is a single mother seeking a partner for life. And there is Marissa, Andrea's sister, whose entire world is her five year old special needs daughter.  She is so focused on her care that she does not realize that her son and husband are slipping away.

Told in alternating voices we get to watch as each one of their lives spin out of control for various reasons. For Marissa, she has just discovered that her son is gay and her husband has been having a long term affair.  Holly joins a writers group and gets sexually wrapped up in a guy from the group.  She is so infatuated she is blinded to what is happening with her own kids. And Andrea, at first she is envious that Holly and Marissa are married, but when she starts to see the cracks in their marriages, she starts to rethink the envy.

If I had to sum up Triangles in one word it would have to be "Intense."  All three women are going into "mid-life" kicking and screaming.  Their lives have not turned out the way they had planned as young girls and they struggle to come to grips with reality.  This book is intense, heartbreaking, sexy, risque, and a little bit dangerous.  But no matter how shocked I was by the antics of Holly,I could not stop reading. That is a sure sign of a good book, no?

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