Blog Two - Ginger Cordell

Within the book Tricks, there are five characters and one character I feel stands out more with her problems, Ginger Cordell. Ginger lives with her grandmother, six siblings from five different fathers, and Iris - her mother. Ginger, being the only teenager of them all takes the responsibility for almost everything. Her grandmother is fifty three and is doing as much as she can as well to help. Ginger’s life is nowhere near fun because Iris is a prostitute. Iris used Ginger as the voice of reason all the time especially when she gets dumped because Ginger will sit there and convince her that she is way to good for the loser guys she dates but Ginger is still just a child herself, and can only take so much, she has her moments where she snaps at Iris and then Iris turns and will shake and hit her until she realizes that she has had enough and then spends the rest of the day apologizing until she gets another "gig" and once Iris is gone, grams is always saying how she wishes that Iris would be more like Ginger.

Ginger has a friend, one friend, her best friend she can talk to about anything, her name is Alex. Ginger talks to Alex about everything that has occurred in her life, she even talked about Walt. When Ginger was 10, Iris had a boyfriend known as Walt and he was this big, scarey guy who had raped Ginger when Iris was not home nor was the other children because Iris took them out for ice cream. But that was not the only time she had been raped it happened one day after she spend almost the whole day at Alex’s house. Ginger walked through the door and went to the kitchen, no one was home, grams at work and god knows where Iris is with the other five kids. She hear the tv on, and then suddenly shut off, she thought it was Harry, Iris’s new "man" but it wasn’t. Its was a man that Ginger had never seen before in life. A man that was at least 45 and he was built like a bull, that reminded her of Walt, so she got scared and started to back away. He backed her right against the fridge and said "wow your mother was right you are a knockout." Ginger was confused, very confused and even more scared, she could feel him stocking her body up and down. He grabs her starts to rip of her shorts and she yells "get away from me, let me go!" but he doesn’t and he says "I paid 200 bucks for you girl, so im gonna give you 200 bucks worth of pleasure." It dawned on her, of what he said - $200? Paid for? Iris has sold her own daughter’s body for money. After it happens she runs, and keeps running until she reaches Alex’s house, she tells Alex everything and starts thinking how much she likes Alex. The way she talks, the way she looks, everything. Ginger felt something between the two of them and so did Alex, because Alex leaned in and kissed her.

Later then decided to run away, Ginger couldn’t bear seeing Iris again, she feels sorry for leaving grams and the other children, but she figured grams is smart she will take good care of them. But the only problem was money. They needed money especially with running away to Vegas. That is where the decided the were going to run away to because Alex new someone in Vegas who would let them stay with her. Ginger new exactly where she was going to get the money from. She was going to get it from Iris, but not directly. Iris had a stash of money in her velvet blue socks in her dresser, Iris doesn’t know that Ginger knows where the money is because Iris was really drunk one night and forgot that Ginger was standing right there. She ran back home, only grams was home then, she told her that she was sleeping over at a friends house and grams said that was fine. So Ginger ran upstairs right to Iris’s room and there was the dresser, she walked over to it, opened it and then saw the velvet blue socks, she went in and looked for $200, after all, that was what she owed Ginger, but then she got thinking. If the big guy who raped her paid for it, maybe so did Walt, so she took it all. There was over $400 in the socks and all she did was leave the dresser open and a note that said, "Isn’t even close to what you owe me, I hate you!"


How you would react if you or a friend had gone through the same thing as Ginger? How would you feel? What would you do?

My Initial Reaction to Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

My initial reaction to the book so far is that it is full with problems and issues that the characters constantly face just like we all do in everyday life. Sure some of the problems I have read about don’t apply to everyone but we all understand the hardship that comes from being a teenager in high school for we all have been living it for the past 4 years or so. Whether you are a teenage girl who is questioning her faith and in love with someone her parents don’t approve of like Eden Streit or if you are a teenage boy hiding a secret you cant tell your father because you are afraid of what he might say when you come out and say “Dad I’m gay,” like Seth Parnell.

In this novel there are many different problems that the characters face on a daily basis. At the beginning of the novel is when the characters problems are all pointed out to the reader and they are all problems that keep you reading to see how they would solve them. I have already mentioned Eden Streit and Seth Parnell. There are three more characters in the book that I am still going to introduce with their problems. The third character is Whitney Lang, her problem is living in her older sister’s shadow which many people can relate to but that’s not the only problem this character faces. Whitney is also completely in love with her boyfriend Lucas and she is sure she is ready to let him take her virginity but that doesn’t go as well as planned.

Another character named Ginger Cordell is living with many problems. Problems that involve her six siblings all younger and all having different fathers, living with their grandmother. Ginger’s grandmother does all she can but Ginger is still doing so much and basically taking the place of their mother because their mother, Iris, is a prostitute.

The last character needed to be mentioned is Cody Bennett. Cody is a teenage boy living his life without knowing his real – well biological father, but that doesn’t come to an issue in his life. Cody is dating his ex-girlfriend’s best friend Veronica. The major problem in Cody’s life is that his stepfather is sick.

These stories all carry desire in them. The desire to help, love and live their lives as a teenager with no problems, no issues and nothing to hold them back. How would you handle any of these situations if you were living your life this way?