Monday, April 7, 2014

Audio Review: Tilt by Ellen Hopkins

Book: Tilt (Unabridged)
By: Ellen Hopkins
Narrator: Kirby Heyborne, Madeleine Maby, Rebekkehj Ross
Length: 8 hrs 42 minutes
Published: September 11, 2014
Published By: Simon and Schuster Audio
Description: Love—good and bad—forces three teens’ worlds to tilt in a riveting novel from New York Times bestselling author Ellen Hopkins.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.


My Thougths: Tilt is a book about love and the ways it can ruin you, or make you better. It's not one of those books that has an ending you can see from the beginning. No, this one is one where you have to read every single page, and wait to see where it will take you.

We follow three teens (with POV's of a few others interspersed throughout) who are connected through their parents. Mikayla, Shane, and Harley. I won't give too many  details since the description tells you enough, but just know that this isn't a story of roses and dandelions. These characters get down and dirty (in every sense of the word).

The narration of this story, though good, was a bit confusing with all the different characters. I often had trouble remembering what character I was inside of, but the book offered refreshers to make the transitions easier for us, and most of the transitions followed a logical path.

As most of Ellen Hopkins' books are written in poem, and the same is true for Tilt, I think it would have been better to read this one instead of listen to it. Often, the alignment of the poems add a certain something to the story that we as listeners missed out. Still, the narrators did pretty well translating it verbally.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. I would recommend this one for younger readers, not necessarily older YA lovers. As a 25 year old, I noticed most of the themes were a bit young for me and I got a little frustrated with the naiveté of the characters. Some I wanted to punch in the face outright for their stupid decisions and thought processes, but I believe it was mostly because I no longer think as a young teen would. I give it 3.5 stars.

1 comments:

Lan said...

I had thought this one was for older YA readers until I read your review. The different POVs do sound like they could be confusing but they all seem really interesting as well. I've never read a book written in poem before.

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