A review by aquigleyy
People Kill People by Ellen Hopkins

1.0

Perhaps it is due to my own aging out of young adulthood, but Ellen Hopkins just doesn’t do it for me anymore like she used to. I used to love her books and wouldn’t be able to get enough, but now I find them to be a bit surface level and predictable. I used to love reading her poem format, but I didn’t love it as much this time around especially as they wove in between the fade in/fade outs (another interesting format choice that I didn’t much care for). While I was expecting the book to be about violence and hatred, I wasn’t expecting so much focus on racism and white supremacy and didn’t particularly enjoy reading through the thoughts of the characters who possessed those ideals – it seemed almost condoned or supported throughout the book. What I did like the voice of ‘violence’ that was present throughout the novel and with all of the characters – we all have the little devil on our shoulder that encourages us to act on our impulses and the italicized voice of violence or self-hatred showed how it affects all of us and is influenced by our subconscious desires. However, the book seemed to end suddenly right as things were climaxing, but the author was generous enough to give us a conclusion for each character. The events were more or less predictable and the viewpoint shifted to a different character just as things were getting interesting, heated, or violent. All in all, I may just have to stick to Ellen’s writings about addiction and mental health as she has a unique ability to write well about those topics, but this one just wasn’t a hit for me.