ABOUT THE BOOK
Meet Ashley, a graduate student at San Diego State University. She was raised in northern California reading poetry and singing back-up in her best friend’s band. The last thing she ever expected was to end up a military wife. But one night, she meets a handsome Marine named Cole. He doesn’t match the stereotype of the aggressive military man she’d always presumed to be true; he’s passionate and romantic, and he even writes poetry. Their relationship evolves into a deeply felt, sexually charged love affair that goes on for five years and survives four deployments. Cole desperately wants Ashley to marry him, but when she meets another man, a college professor, with similar professional pursuits and values, she begins to see what life might be like outside the shadow of war.
Written in Ellen Hopkins’s stunning poetic verse style, Collateral captures the hearts of the soldiers on the battlefield and the minds of the friends, family, and lovers they leave behind. While those at home may be far from the relentless, sand-choked skies of the Middle East and the crosshairs of a sniper rifle, they too sacrifice their lives and happiness for their country at war. And all must eventually ask themselves if the collateral damage it causes is worth the fight.
BOOK EXCERPT
YOU KNOW MY STORY
UGLY IN BLACK
As Earth returns to chaos, her women brace to mourn, excavate their buried faith, tap reservoirs of grace, to mourn.
Soldiers steady M-16s, search stillborn eyes for welcome or signs of commonality. Ferreting no trace, they mourn.
Few are safe, where passions swell like gangrened limbs you cannot amputate. Sever one, another takes its place, and you mourn.
Freefall into martyrdom, a bronze-skinned youth slips into the crowd, pulls the pin. He and destiny embrace, together mourn.
LOVING ANY SOLDIER
Is extremely hard. Loving a Marine
who’s an aggressive front-line marksman
is almost impossible, especially when
he’s deployed. That’s not now. Currently,
Cole is on base in Kaneohe, awaiting
orders. The good thing about that is
I get to talk to him pretty much every
day. The bad thing is, we both know
he’ll go back to the Middle East as soon
as some Pentagon strategist decides
the time is right, again. Cole’s battalion
has already deployed twice to Iraq
and once to Afghanistan. Draw-down
be damned, Helmand Province and beyond
looks likely for his fourth go-round.
You’d think it would get easier. But ask
me, three scratch-free homecomings
make another less likely in the future.
REVIEW FOR COLLATERAL
REVIEWS FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY:
Having triumphed last year with an adult novel, Triangles, YA phenomenon Hopkins returns with the story of two women, two men, and the military that comes between them. MFA student/band backup singer Ashley never thought she would fall for a soldier until she met Cole and then endures five years’ worth of deployments, uncertain whether to commit to marriage. Best friend Darian does marry a marine but finds life as a military wife unbearable and has decided on divorce when tragedy strikes. Expect a big audience; with a reading group guide. —Library Journal