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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
Entirely written in verse, I enjoyed this story as a warning of what can happen following one, little, bad choice.
I feel like I’m supposed to love this one. But really, it gets a 2.5 from me.
I know much of this is based on the author’s own experiences, so it feels bad to critique it, but I felt like we were lacking some exposition. It felt unrealistic. It felt like there was more that should explain what was driving this character’s choices beyond it simply being addiction.
I do appreciate the use of poetry here.
I also always pause when it seems like a baby “fixes a person” as some sort of plot in YA novels- I’ve seen it numerous times in various iterations. (Though I appreciate the author’s forward that explains this part a little more.)
I know much of this is based on the author’s own experiences, so it feels bad to critique it, but I felt like we were lacking some exposition. It felt unrealistic. It felt like there was more that should explain what was driving this character’s choices beyond it simply being addiction.
I do appreciate the use of poetry here.
I also always pause when it seems like a baby “fixes a person” as some sort of plot in YA novels- I’ve seen it numerous times in various iterations. (Though I appreciate the author’s forward that explains this part a little more.)
I can not stand how this book is physically typed on the page. It drove me nuts! the story was good in itself, but the ending felt outrageously rushed.
I devoured this book. It’s a tour de force on the power of words—the shaped, free flow poetry is the perfect vehicle for a teenager’s descent into addiction. I will need to reread to pick up on more nuances to story and language because I simply inhaled it. Immediately looking for other books by Ellen Hopkins to read.
Crank is a poetry/verse novel that follows the story of Kristina, a straight-A student, who becomes addicted to crank. She creates two different personalities: Kristina, the family oriented and goody-two-shoes girl, and Bree, the risk-taking drug addict. The book is written in first person, allowing readers to see things from Kristina/Bree's perspective. The author, Ellen Hopkins, says that this book is loosely based on real events that happened to her family and writing the book was therapeutic for her. Crank is filled with raw emotion and readers are completely drawn into the character of Bree. Hopkins plays with the style of her poetry and creates poems that have varied spacing, which adds to the poem's meaning and makes the poetry seem more like a character's internal thoughts. This book is for more mature readers because it involves themes of drugs, sex, and violence, however young adults will be able to relate to the character of Bree. Also, this book can serve as a lesson against using drugs.
I read this in a weekend, easy-breezy. It was good. The story of a girl's crank addiction is told in poetry; many pages could be read multiple ways, which was kind of cool. It's one of those books you can't put down once you start. My main critique is that it takes 99% of it to describe how the addiction happened and culminated, and then like a couple of pages to describe how she stopped-- I wanted to see more of that (surely there would be many struggles involved). Maybe that's what the sequel does.
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes