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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The free verse and shapes of the words were very distracting to me.
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book is being challenged at my public library, so I volunteered to read it and be on a committee to decide its fate. The book is already in the adult section, so I don’t know what the problem is.
This was not my kind of book. But I do have to admit that it is a good book. Once I got used to the writing style, I got pulled in. I do wish that we had gotten a little more of her healing journey, and I’m more than a little mad about her decisions at the end, but that is more of my issue than the story’s.
This should definitely remain on library shelves though. Get fucked, book banners.
This was not my kind of book. But I do have to admit that it is a good book. Once I got used to the writing style, I got pulled in. I do wish that we had gotten a little more of her healing journey, and I’m more than a little mad about her decisions at the end, but that is more of my issue than the story’s.
This should definitely remain on library shelves though. Get fucked, book banners.
This is one powerfully written book. I can't say that I loved it, but it really does hit you hard. It's a very honest, dirty, raw look at what drugs and addiction can do. It gets under your skin when you realize that Hopkins wrote this based on her own daughter's experiences. Written in all forms of free verse poetry we follow the journey of Kristina from her first introduction to crank. I almost feel like we get a happy ending in a way, but then I read the excerpt from the follow up novel and you realize there was no happy ending. Kristina, like so many addicts, was able to fool herself into thinking she had gotten herself together.
It's hard to feel sympathy for a character when they are doing things you know to be wrong and you think it would have been so easy to say no to in the first place. I would have loved to have been able to delve deeper into the character before the drugs to see where she's coming from. And because it's poetry, it's hard to get a true narrative of what's going on. I mean, it was beautiful and powerful and I've never actually read a novel written like that, but I guess I like a good narration more.
Pretty much all if the teenagers I know have read this and loved it. If it helps them see the dark reality of addiction well enough to not do these things themselves, then this novel has fulfilled it's purpose.
It's hard to feel sympathy for a character when they are doing things you know to be wrong and you think it would have been so easy to say no to in the first place. I would have loved to have been able to delve deeper into the character before the drugs to see where she's coming from. And because it's poetry, it's hard to get a true narrative of what's going on. I mean, it was beautiful and powerful and I've never actually read a novel written like that, but I guess I like a good narration more.
Pretty much all if the teenagers I know have read this and loved it. If it helps them see the dark reality of addiction well enough to not do these things themselves, then this novel has fulfilled it's purpose.
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read this book in high school and decided to pick it up again when I saw it was on KU. I read a lot of books as a teen, but this has always been one to stick out in my memory. I recommended it often, since the riveting subject matter and unique verse format made it a quick read for non-readers.
While a devastating topic, I “enjoyed” rereading this one and will likely finish the trilogy.
While a devastating topic, I “enjoyed” rereading this one and will likely finish the trilogy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Sexual assault
Moderate: Abortion, Pregnancy
I was horrified and riveted by Kristina's transformation from busy, successful teenager into a meth addict when her life is twisted by the manipulation and betrayal of those around her. She becomes Bree, a figure of pain, desolation, and desperate addiction that latches on and refuses to let go, taking more and more from the person she was before. There is power in this story, if only to illustrate how easy it is to start down the wrong path and how arduous a task it is to get off of it; as Hopkins writes, "Hindsight is useless." I believe she wrote this novel to let readers learn from the hindsight of her own daughter, hoping that they would avoid walking this same path.
This is the story of a teenager, Kristina Georgia Snow, who on a summer vacation visiting her deadbeat father, experiments with drugs for the first time in her life. Kristina is replaced by her alter-ego, Bree, and is no longer the straight-A, perfect, quiet daughter her mother was used to. Bree is pretty much all instincts, and everything she does comes down to one motivation: how to get more crank (a cheap form of meth). This chronicles her descent into a full-blown addict, and the effects it has on her life and those of her friends and family.
The entire story is told in well-crafted verse, which is just amazing. I don't think I would have rated this anything beyond a 3-star review if it weren't for the fact Hopkins pulled off something so wonderful by writing this novel in verse. It really helped me get an extra feel for the inner workings of Kristina/Bree's mind in a way that I don't think you'd be able to quite get in a prose version. It really gives an idea of just how unstable she's becoming, especially when she's under the control of the wild Bree.
A good deal of the poems can be read in different ways to give extra meaning, which I was really excited upon noticing. Sometimes you read it straight across, but in addition to that you can read the single words that are spaced different to the side and it's a poem-within-a-poem. It's very obvious that Ellen Hopkins put a whole lot of effort into crafting the verse and I was really impressed by it.
The novel isn't perfect, by any means. Part of the ending felt a little forced, but I expect that will be resolved in the sequel. Overall, an excellent read! It's also pretty quick--while it is 537 pages long, it only took me a couple of hours to finish it.
The entire story is told in well-crafted verse, which is just amazing. I don't think I would have rated this anything beyond a 3-star review if it weren't for the fact Hopkins pulled off something so wonderful by writing this novel in verse. It really helped me get an extra feel for the inner workings of Kristina/Bree's mind in a way that I don't think you'd be able to quite get in a prose version. It really gives an idea of just how unstable she's becoming, especially when she's under the control of the wild Bree.
A good deal of the poems can be read in different ways to give extra meaning, which I was really excited upon noticing. Sometimes you read it straight across, but in addition to that you can read the single words that are spaced different to the side and it's a poem-within-a-poem. It's very obvious that Ellen Hopkins put a whole lot of effort into crafting the verse and I was really impressed by it.
The novel isn't perfect, by any means. Part of the ending felt a little forced, but I expect that will be resolved in the sequel. Overall, an excellent read! It's also pretty quick--while it is 537 pages long, it only took me a couple of hours to finish it.
DNF at ~45% - and let me tell you why.
Let me preface this review by saying that I sympathize with Hopkins, and that I appreciate the courage it took to use her own life to illustrate the epidemic of teenage drug abuse. She describes meth as a monster, and she's not wrong. It destroyed her daughter's life, and that is the basis for this book of poems.
Which is pretty much where this book went wrong, in a genuinely upsetting way. I.e., immediately. I understand from some research that Hopkins claims the actual events of the novel to be approximately "60% fact." So I'll make no comment about plot, because I'm not sure what's true and what isn't. Moreover, that doesn't really matter for the point I'm trying to make -- the characters are thin facsimiles of the actual Hopkins family, and that's the part that matters for me.
I was honestly embarrassed for Hopkins over the course of this book. Not for what she's been through with her daughter -- I mean as a writer. The Hopkins who was writing this book was a middle-aged woman who was obviously carrying around the insecurities that can come with that phase of life. Throughout the book the main character, Kristina, is constantly talking about her mom: how pretty her mom is, especially how she looks good for her age, how great a cook she is, how attentive a parent, etc. etc. And maybe that's all true - I don't know Ellen Hopkins, she could very easily be all those things. But even when Kristina is "flying," "riding the monster" (I've always liked "tweaking," personally,but I don't think it's used in the book), her mom and how amazing she is intrudes on nearly every other page. And that would be fine if that was the character, except that this book is essentially being written by Kristina's mom. And I couldn't get it out of my head.
On a critical standpoint, the character was fundamentally flawed by its auto-fiction structure - the author kept intruding upon the narration, sucking all the believability out of a character that is practically as close as you can get to a real person. On a personal standpoint (which is perhaps too ad hominem, but bear with me), I felt like I was reading the writings of a woman who was desperate to prove that her daughter's addiction wasn't her fault (and of course it wasn't, but the book was published in 2004 -- I think our attitudes towards substance usage disorders have evolved a bit in the fourteen years since). I also saw a woman who was desperate to prove herself attractive and smart and vivacious, which I couldn't help but assume was due to some kind of personal insecurity.
In turn, by injecting the character of herself in the way that she did, she took a book that was supposed to be about her daughter and her struggles, and made it about herself. Not entirely, of course. But enough, enough that I felt like I could see right through Hopkins every time the mom character was mentioned. It completely ruined the book for me -- it took what I thought would be a gut-wrenching, raw look at addiction and turned it into a plea to vanity. I read "Impulse" last month and while, admittedly, wasn't in love with it, "Crank" makes "Impulse" seem like a genuinely good book. There are a hundred books out there about teenage substance abuse now -- find a different one if you actually want to believe the characters. I liked "Go Ask Alice" if you're looking for a rec to scratch the itch.
Let me preface this review by saying that I sympathize with Hopkins, and that I appreciate the courage it took to use her own life to illustrate the epidemic of teenage drug abuse. She describes meth as a monster, and she's not wrong. It destroyed her daughter's life, and that is the basis for this book of poems.
Which is pretty much where this book went wrong, in a genuinely upsetting way. I.e., immediately. I understand from some research that Hopkins claims the actual events of the novel to be approximately "60% fact." So I'll make no comment about plot, because I'm not sure what's true and what isn't. Moreover, that doesn't really matter for the point I'm trying to make -- the characters are thin facsimiles of the actual Hopkins family, and that's the part that matters for me.
I was honestly embarrassed for Hopkins over the course of this book. Not for what she's been through with her daughter -- I mean as a writer. The Hopkins who was writing this book was a middle-aged woman who was obviously carrying around the insecurities that can come with that phase of life. Throughout the book the main character, Kristina, is constantly talking about her mom: how pretty her mom is, especially how she looks good for her age, how great a cook she is, how attentive a parent, etc. etc. And maybe that's all true - I don't know Ellen Hopkins, she could very easily be all those things. But even when Kristina is "flying," "riding the monster" (I've always liked "tweaking," personally,but I don't think it's used in the book), her mom and how amazing she is intrudes on nearly every other page. And that would be fine if that was the character, except that this book is essentially being written by Kristina's mom. And I couldn't get it out of my head.
On a critical standpoint, the character was fundamentally flawed by its auto-fiction structure - the author kept intruding upon the narration, sucking all the believability out of a character that is practically as close as you can get to a real person. On a personal standpoint (which is perhaps too ad hominem, but bear with me), I felt like I was reading the writings of a woman who was desperate to prove that her daughter's addiction wasn't her fault (and of course it wasn't, but the book was published in 2004 -- I think our attitudes towards substance usage disorders have evolved a bit in the fourteen years since). I also saw a woman who was desperate to prove herself attractive and smart and vivacious, which I couldn't help but assume was due to some kind of personal insecurity.
In turn, by injecting the character of herself in the way that she did, she took a book that was supposed to be about her daughter and her struggles, and made it about herself. Not entirely, of course. But enough, enough that I felt like I could see right through Hopkins every time the mom character was mentioned. It completely ruined the book for me -- it took what I thought would be a gut-wrenching, raw look at addiction and turned it into a plea to vanity. I read "Impulse" last month and while, admittedly, wasn't in love with it, "Crank" makes "Impulse" seem like a genuinely good book. There are a hundred books out there about teenage substance abuse now -- find a different one if you actually want to believe the characters. I liked "Go Ask Alice" if you're looking for a rec to scratch the itch.
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
10/10
Crying while I write this.
I'll definitely be continuing this series... after I take a break with some fanfiction because this sent me in a downward spiral
Crying while I write this.
I'll definitely be continuing this series... after I take a break with some fanfiction because this sent me in a downward spiral
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault
This book was upsetting to read as a 33 year old woman. I came so close to being like this. Just a few good decisions made here and there by people I love made me a into a solid person. Why do people make such dumbass decisions? Parents, I mean. I may be a cautious, paranoid person, but maybe it will help me down the road raising my own child.
fast-paced