New Ellen Hopkins - pass on this one!

stars   Collateral by Ellen Hopkins   As many other authors are doing, Ellen Hopkins wrote Collateral for adults though her usual target audience is teens. I gave it 3.0 out of 5 stars because of the way it is written: free verse leaves too many important details from the story for my need as a reader.   This novel, about a college girl who falls in love with a Marine posted to active duty, seemed incomplete without the many details that develop a narrative into a full story that will ring true. As is typical of an EH book, the whole tone is actually quite depressing and the reader can feel another bad ending coming a mile away. A pet peeve of mine is that she alternates points of view and goes back and forth in time. Interspersed between those kinks in the flow are poems written by Ashley and Cole. I didn't really develop any great feeling for the characters and the events that happen to some in the book seemed overdone to prove the point that the deployment of a soldier causes "collateral" damage on everyone connected to him or her. Although I understand that was the theme and point of the story, the negative was relentless. This is definitely NOT a book I would recommend to any man or woman whose loved one was going off to war or joining the military. The ending seemed to come out of nowhere and I was just left disappointed in how the author handled a very important topic. I've read all the previous YA the author has written, and I know teens gobble it up, but this foray into general adult fiction seemed incomplete and was not fulfilling for me. I had way too many questions at the end.   Ms C.