The You I've Never Known by Ellen Hopkins

The You I've Never Known

Ellen Hopkins

Margaret K. McElderry Books · Paperback · January 30, 2018

How do you live your life if your past is based on a lie?

Buy on Amazon

We earn from qualifying purchases.

Who it’s for
A verse novel with raw emotional pull and a brisk, stage-like cadence.
Genres
Novels in Verse for Teens, YA LGBTQ+, Runaway Stories
Published
Margaret K. McElderry Books, January 30, 2018

About this book

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.

Continue reading

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.

Verse Intensity

A verse novel with raw emotional pull and a brisk, stage-like cadence.

Come here for

  • verse-driven intensity
  • heavy subject matter handled in a readable, performance-ready register

Expect

  • realistic fiction
  • death and love in the mix

Where it sits

YA LGBTQ+59%
Novels in Verse for Teens46%
Runaway Stories36%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • YA Divorce & Marriage Stories
  • YA LGBTQ+
  • Abuse & Trauma for Teens
Authors
Ellen Hopkins
Publisher
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published
January 30, 2018
Format
Paperback
Reading lane
YA Divorce & Marriage Stories