Collateral: A Novel
Having made the leap from YA to adult fiction with her novel in verse, Triangles (2011), Hopkins continues to tackle mature themes in the same form. A tale highlighting the stress military life places not just on soldiers but on those who love them, Collateral focuses on Ashley, a 19-year-old student, and Cole, a young marine. In a case of near opposites attracting, the two fall in love, and Hopkins uses her signature poetic style to chart the heightened emotions of their relationship during the separation and anxiety of four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the pair’s subsequent joyful reunions. As Hopkins alternates between past and present, readers witness the unraveling of a once promising romance, with Cole growing increasingly hardened and Ashley confronting doubts about a future with a man she realizes she barely knows. When a sympathetic professor befriends Ashley, she becomes even more confused. Hopkins’ resolution of this triangle is a little too neat and feels rushed, but her point is well made: collateral damage in war often extends to soldiers’ families. --Patty Wetli--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.