Since she failed to plan more than moments ahead, she soon realizes she is in a bad predicament living on the street. Luckily, she meets an outgoing young gay man named Taylor who decides Aria is his instant friend. He has big dreams of becoming an actor and convinces her to come with him to Hollywood, where he has a friend that will help them get settled, and a plan to start his acting career.
While they do make it to Hollywood, Taylor's friend doesn't return his many calls and the pair is forced to figure things out on their own in pretty much the most expensive place they could have gone to. After a rough few days of panhandling and looking for ways to get food or a job, Taylor meets a free-spirited guy named Luke who wants to help them. Luke, who chose to become homeless to "stick it to the man," is a pretty nice guy who shows the pair the abandoned car lot where he lives with his dog, Palin. Most of the other inhabitants are pretty welcoming and Taylor and Aria make a wrecked Land Cruiser their new home.
Now that they have a pseudo place to stay, Taylor begins to aggressively pursue the acting studio that brought him here and it finally pays off. They have a work/study opening and he gets the job. He couldn't be more thrilled to begin pursuing his dream. Meanwhile, Aria searches for food and money while he is away during the day, since she is under-aged and must avoid being spotted by police.
Female necessities force her to realize she is woefully unprepared to live on the street and she stops into a small Indian shop in the hopes of swiping some female products. There she meets a charming young Indian man named Omkar who is shy and clumsy around her, but she is drawn to him. Little does she know that it was love at first sight for Omkar and she will continue to haunt his thoughts. When she comes into the shop some time later, Omkar is thrilled to see this mystery girl again, but he is dismayed when he spies her shoplifting from his parents' store. He decides to follow her to see where she lives, but is stunned to discover she is homeless! And here he thought she was just a normal college student like him. He falls even more in love with her due to her unfortunate circumstances and begins leaving her food and toiletry gifts on the hood of the Land Cruiser.
Eventually, she discovers that Omkar is the one leaving the gifts and the pair begin a relationship, but one that must be kept hidden from his strict Indian parents. Meanwhile, Taylor has met an older man named Dan at the acting studio and has begun seeing him. Dan is incredibly rich and Taylor enjoys being his boy toy, so much so that he is considering abandoning his acting aspirations.
When tragedy strikes at the car lot following one of the residents getting an unsettling visit from Child Protective Services, Taylor and Aria (and everyone else) must find an alternate place to stay. Will Omkar's parents accept that he is involved with a white girl, much less one who is homeless?
I initially found Hunger of the Pine to be interesting, but I will admit that I found it a bit far-fetched at times and I hope no dissatisfied teens look to it as a hopeful roadmap to happiness. Also, personally, I feel like teen homelessness and abuse are big enough issues to take center stage in this book, but the author also peppers the book with issues such as racism between whites and Mexicans as well as Indians, and L.A. cops shooting young black men, specifically a character established earlier in the book. The shooting ordeal is over in just three pages and while the character did have a conversation with Aria earlier, it just seemed stuck in there. That's just my personal opinion.
One final note is that often throughout the book, the author delves into very purple prose, which is fine, but in the scene between Aria and her boyfriend where they finally have sex, I felt like I was reading a cheesy romance novel, such were the writing flourishes. Then on the next page, she actually uses the term "skeet" and not in reference to shooting clay pigeons. Really? I had literary whiplash from that one and ugh, just gross.
Overall, I didn't love it. It was an okay story, but I just didn't buy a lot of it. I commend the author for trying to shed light on teen homelessness, but I found it more ridiculous than inspiring. Your mileage may vary.
