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A review by kyleg99
Collateral by Ellen Hopkins
3.0
This and others reviews can also be found at Living Is Reading
Ellen Hopkins is one of my favorite writers . . . ever. I love her prose, characters, pacing, romance, and how she’s not afraid to write about taboo issues like prostitution, sexual abuse, etc. Ever since New Year’s Day of 2011, when I took a chance and downloaded Crank despite the fact that I was uncertain about the verse format, I fell in love and have since then read every book, YA or adult, that she’s published.
However, I have a sad confession to make: I feel, especially since the books published after Tricks, that she’s losing her edge. Basically:
Crank, Burned, Impulse, Glass, Identical, Tricks = Amazing
Perfect = Amazing, but not quite as amazing as her other works
Fallout, Triangles, Tilt, Collateral = Not as good by any means
Moving on, let’s talk about Collateral. I thought that this book would be really easy to connect to, since my grandfather served in the Navy during the Pacific theater of WWII, and my cousin fought in Iraq until he was killed on July 12th, 2006. I really wasn’t very close with my cousin, since I only met him once in before he died, but I figured that perhaps I could relate to the feelings that a lot of these characters have.
I encountered a lot of problems along the way, unfortunately.
First off, our main character, Ashley Patterson, is very drab and boring. She lacks a distinct personality and that charisma I need in characters so that I can become invested in them. Because I couldn’t become invested in her and her troubles, I didn’t really connect to her feelings of longing because her Marine boyfriend Cole wasn’t there.
Also, Cole himself is an asshole. Sure, he was pretty nice when he was first introduced, but if anybody believes that rape is okay in some cases, they can’t be all that nice. Thank God that Ashley told Cole off after he said that, otherwise I would’ve had to set this down.
The romance between them wasn’t any good either. Ashley rarely displayed a backbone in my opinion, and Cole was just such an asshole that I was waiting for them to have some kind of dramatic breakup, or for Ashley to just go find somebody else.
There wasn’t much of a plot, since it basically revolved around Ashley and Cole’s relationship, and the trials that it had gone through since they met and the trials that it was going through during the present time.
This isn’t to say that the book is all bad. I do still like Ellen’s prose, even if it does have the occasional slip-up into strange, and this was definitely impossible to put down. I read about 380 pages in the car-ride to and from Staten Island on Christmas Eve. For the most part I was also reasonably entertained and my interest was held.
Disappointed is the best word to use, I guess.
Ellen Hopkins is one of my favorite writers . . . ever. I love her prose, characters, pacing, romance, and how she’s not afraid to write about taboo issues like prostitution, sexual abuse, etc. Ever since New Year’s Day of 2011, when I took a chance and downloaded Crank despite the fact that I was uncertain about the verse format, I fell in love and have since then read every book, YA or adult, that she’s published.
However, I have a sad confession to make: I feel, especially since the books published after Tricks, that she’s losing her edge. Basically:
Crank, Burned, Impulse, Glass, Identical, Tricks = Amazing
Perfect = Amazing, but not quite as amazing as her other works
Fallout, Triangles, Tilt, Collateral = Not as good by any means
Moving on, let’s talk about Collateral. I thought that this book would be really easy to connect to, since my grandfather served in the Navy during the Pacific theater of WWII, and my cousin fought in Iraq until he was killed on July 12th, 2006. I really wasn’t very close with my cousin, since I only met him once in before he died, but I figured that perhaps I could relate to the feelings that a lot of these characters have.
I encountered a lot of problems along the way, unfortunately.
First off, our main character, Ashley Patterson, is very drab and boring. She lacks a distinct personality and that charisma I need in characters so that I can become invested in them. Because I couldn’t become invested in her and her troubles, I didn’t really connect to her feelings of longing because her Marine boyfriend Cole wasn’t there.
Also, Cole himself is an asshole. Sure, he was pretty nice when he was first introduced, but if anybody believes that rape is okay in some cases, they can’t be all that nice. Thank God that Ashley told Cole off after he said that, otherwise I would’ve had to set this down.
The romance between them wasn’t any good either. Ashley rarely displayed a backbone in my opinion, and Cole was just such an asshole that I was waiting for them to have some kind of dramatic breakup, or for Ashley to just go find somebody else.
There wasn’t much of a plot, since it basically revolved around Ashley and Cole’s relationship, and the trials that it had gone through since they met and the trials that it was going through during the present time.
This isn’t to say that the book is all bad. I do still like Ellen’s prose, even if it does have the occasional slip-up into strange, and this was definitely impossible to put down. I read about 380 pages in the car-ride to and from Staten Island on Christmas Eve. For the most part I was also reasonably entertained and my interest was held.
Disappointed is the best word to use, I guess.