The You I've Never Known - Softcover

Hopkins, Ellen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1481442910 ISBN 13: 9781481442916

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2018

Synopsis

How do you live your life if your past is based on a lie? Find out in this “satisfied and moving story” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) in both verse and prose from #1 New York Times bestselling author Ellen Hopkins.

For as long as she can remember, it’s been just Ariel and Dad. Ariel’s mom disappeared when she was a baby. Dad says home is wherever the two of them are, but Ariel is now seventeen and after years of new apartments, new schools, and new faces, all she wants is to put down some roots. Complicating things are Monica and Gabe, both of whom have stirred a different kind of desire.

Maya’s a teenager who’s run from an abusive mother right into the arms of an older man she thinks she can trust. But now she’s isolated with a baby on the way, and life’s getting more complicated than Maya ever could have imagined.

Ariel and Maya’s lives collide unexpectedly when Ariel’s mother shows up out of the blue with wild accusations: Ariel wasn’t abandoned. Her father kidnapped her fourteen years ago.

In bestselling author Ellen Hopkins’s deft hands, Ariel’s emotionally charged journey to find out the truth of who she really is balances beautifully with Maya’s story of loss and redemption. This is a memorable portrait of two young women trying to make sense of their lives and coming face to face with themselves—for both the last and the very first time.

About this title

About the Author

Ellen Hopkins is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of numerous young adult novels, as well as the adult novels such as Triangles, Collateral, and Love Lies Beneath. She lives with her family in Carson City, Nevada, where she has founded Ventana Sierra, a nonprofit youth housing and resource initiative. Follow her on Twitter at @EllenHopkinsLit.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The You I’ve Never Known I Can’t Remember
Every place

Dad and I have

called home. When

I was real little, the two

of us sometimes lived in

our car. Those memories

are in motion. Always moving.

I don’t think

I minded it so much

then, though mixed in

with happy recollections

are snippets of intense fear.

I didn’t dare ask why one stretch

of sky wasn’t good enough to settle

under. My dad

likes to say he came

into this world infected

with wanderlust. He claims

I’m lucky, that at one day till

I turn seventeen I’ve seen way

more places than most folks see

in an entire

lifetime. I’m sure

he’s right on the most

basic level, and while I

can’t dig up snapshots of

North Dakota, West Virginia, or

Nebraska, how could I ever forget

watching Old

Faithful spouting

way up into the bold

amethyst Yellowstone sky,

or the granddaddy alligator

ambling along beside our car

on a stretch of Everglade roadway?

I’ve inhaled

heavenly sweet

plumeria perfume,

dodging pedicab traffic

in the craziness of Waikiki.

I’ve picnicked in the shadows

of redwoods older than the rumored

son of God;

nudged up against

the edge of the Grand

Canyon as a pair of eagles

played tag in the warm air

currents; seen Atlantic whales

spy-hop; bodysurfed in the Pacific;

and picked spring-

inspired Death Valley

wildflowers. I’ve listened

to Niagara Falls percussion,

the haunting song of courting

loons. So I guess my dad is right.

I’m luckier than a whole lot of people.

Edition details

• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1481442910
• ISBN 13: 9781481442916
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 624