{Review} Tilt by Ellen Hopkins

Title: Tilt
Author: Ellen Hopkins
Format: Library Hardcover
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderrly Books
Release date: September 11th 2012
Date Read: January 8th 2013
Rating: ✭✭

Three teens, three stories—all interconnected through their parents’ family relationships. As the adults pull away, caught up in their own dilemmas, the lives of the teens begin to tilt….

Mikayla, almost eighteen, is over-the-top in love with Dylan, who loves her back jealously. But what happens to that love when Mikayla gets pregnant the summer before their senior year—and decides to keep the baby?
Shane turns sixteen that same summer and falls hard in love with his first boyfriend, Alex, who happens to be HIV positive. Shane has lived for four years with his little sister’s impending death. Can he accept Alex’s love, knowing that his life, too, will be shortened?
Harley is fourteen—a good girl searching for new experiences, especially love from an older boy. She never expects to hurdle toward self-destructive extremes in order to define who she is and who she wants to be.
Love, in all its forms, has crucial consequences in this standalone novel.

I am quite addicted to free prose novels, especially those by Ellen Hopkins. The only one, out of her published free prose novels, I haven't read is TRIANGLES which is an adult novel. I realized a long long time ago that they were all the same.

The plot, the characters - Hopkins keeps reusing them. There's always this one gay stereotype, a teenage pregnancy stereotype, a young innocent girl stereotype, and a druggie stereotype. At least three of them are always in her books. 

Yet, I still read them. 

And reread them.

And love them. At least, if I don't think about them too much. 

But when I do, I start to realize that they aren't as good as I thought. The reason I have never written a review for any of her books is simple. I'm scared to. I'm extremely scared that if I think about these books, I'll start to hate them, which would ruin my whole reading memories of these books.
But, I'm going to brave my fears and attempt to review this book.

To understand why I love these books, you probably will have to read the book. The prose, at least personally, is addictive. I adore free prose and am thoroughly addicted to it. There is an almost 90% chance that I will give a free prose novel a four star rating. It can have horrible characters and a clichéd plot but I love the writing too much.

Examples?

IMPULSE, IDENTICAL, TRICKS, GLASS, FALLOUT and I could go on. I really could. It's pathetic honestly.


Talking about horrible characters...

Characters

Like almost every Ellen Hopkins books, there are more than one POV. Tilt has three (with a different POV at the end of each chapter). Mikayla is the teen pregnancy stereotype, Shane is the gay one, and Harley is the thirteen year old.

Mikayla isn't a bad character but her whole personality is a stereotype. Girl is in LURV with boy. Gets pregnant. Boyfriend dumps her. She decided to keep baby. The end. I really didn't like her POVs at all and tended to skim them.

Shane was actually my favorite character. His relationship with Alex was just so adorable. I couldn't help but love him. He's probably the least stereo-fyed of all the characters. Though the ending to his story was disappointing, the rest was great.

Harley's POV was just urgh. Disgusting. I really felt disgusted just reading it. [Harley is coerced into providing, um, services to a 17 year old boy. She does everything imaginable except for actually having sex with him.]

The stupidity of Harley is obvious, as "her boyfriend" really does nothing except try and get her to have sex. 

I'm sure that you were supposed to feel sorry for Harley but honestly, and I'm going to sound like a bitch, I did not feel any sadness for her. 

Sure, it's a bad situation but she got herself into it. Everyone was telling her "BITCH, BACK OFF" (even the person she said she really truly loved) but she kept going because she truly felt loved his body him. 

Plot and Writing

Plot

The plot was basically the same as it always is. Three plots that eventually meet up and the endings of each character change another one's. I'll have to discuss each plot they differ drastically.

Mikayla:
Her plot was so standard. I'm pretty sure her POV was only there as a plot device for Shane's plot. That's what it seems at least. Her baby is important to the ending of Shane's plot as they give Mikayla's son to Shane's mother and that pushes him off the deep end. 

Ending Comment: Plain and useless 

Shane:
As I said, I really liked his POV. It was mostly romance based, which I usually wouldn't like but this was just so fluffy and adorable (for the most part). Since it's a Hopkins' book, things went downhill and the story ended sadly. 

Ending Comment: Adorable, but not the best work. Not sure what it was trying to tell, "Don’t get a cat"?

Harley:
Blergh. No. I really hate the plot.

Ending Comment: See above. 

Writing

The writing was the same Hopkins as usual, though I found a distinct lack of double meanings and another ways to read it in the prose, which I found utterly disappointing. I love those. The writing was fine other wise. I know some don't like verse but I adore it so I have no complains there.

Likes and Dislikes

Liked:

- Writing
- Shane
- Alex


Disliked:
- Every character except for Shane and Alex
- Plots for every character except for Shane and Alex

In Conclusion

I still love these books even though it's obvious I shouldn't. I don't recommend this book unless you're like me and are addicted to the series/writing. 

Lisbeth is an American teenager who enjoys blowing shit up in videogames and discussing decapitation in great detail. She's also obsessed with Oceana, but you're not supposed to know that.