Tilt by Ellen Hopkins

Summary: 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.


Review: I've wanted Tilt out ever since I put down Triangles. I greatly enjoyed reliving some experiences through the eyes of Mik, Shane, and Harley. Honestly, I probably related more to Harley than any of the others. I almost got caught up in similar stuff that she dealt with. Shane and Mik were still sweet, flawed characters. Probably my favorite part of Tilt was getting to know Alex better. That was an absolute treat. He might be my favorite simply because he had the best attitude out of everyone. It was nice getting inside Bri's head too. I definitely approve of Ellen giving us that little bit of insight to each of these minor characters. Dylan's poems usually came after Mik's, Chad came after Harley, and Alex's usually came after Shane's (which makes sense because those were the consistent people the kids' lives), but it was nice getting a bit from characters like Bri, Tyler, and Kristy as well.

One thing that truly shows the skill Ellen Hopkins has with her writing is the little 1-page long poems from the perspective of secondary characters. She conveyed just as much emotion in these poems as she did with Mik, Shane, and Harley's multi-poem stories. I hope that makes sense. I think I would have liked Tilt more if I hadn't read Triangles because nothing in Tilt stunned me. There were a couple sad things that happened in Tilt that I don't think was in Triangles (it's been a while since I've read Triangles), but none if it was stuff that I didn't already see coming. That's gotta be my only complaint with Tilt. That being said, this was a fantastic book. I'm always delighted to see what Ellen has to give to us.

4.5 howls

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