Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Crank by Ellen Hopkins

6 reviews

zydecovivo's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I don’t have a lot of experience reading books in verse, especially not of this length. Honestly, I would never have picked up this book except for the Bad Bitch Book Club 2024 prompt to read a book whose protagonist shares your name. You would not believe how difficult it is to find books about another Kristina with a K. Could I have made my life easier with Christina or Cristina? Yes. But that’s not my name. 
That being said, I did find the book compelling. I hesitate to say enjoy due to the subject matter. I didn’t struggle to follow the narrative as much as I thought I would and I wanted to continue following Kristina, even if her downward spiral was painful to see. Please make sure to read all content warnings before starting because some of her experiences are traumatic and graphic. I can empathize with her jumbled feelings about her parent’s divorce, feeling invisible, and yearning to shed the “good girl” persona she feels she’s been boxed into. However, I don’t understand why she felt her first taste of rebellion should be sex and drugs, but we are different people. It’s frightening to see just how quickly her life unravels. This book takes place over less than a year. Kristina could be anyone. Therefore, anyone could fall into the same traps. 
My main “ick” with the story is the fact that the author freely admits that it is based on the experiences her daughter went through. The author tries to address this in a note following the conclusion of the story, but it was very defensive. Hopkins says the story wasn’t written to be published, but she ultimately did and built a career off of its success. I can’t fully put into words how much of a betrayal this would feel to me if my own mother did something similar, advertising my mistakes and personal demons to the world and making money off of it. Sure, that money eventually went to help her daughter and her daughter’s children. But it took a long time. This feels similar to family vloggers or parents of child stars using their children to support the entire family, even though Hopkins’ daughter was an adult by the time it was published. 
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gondorgirl's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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rhiannon814r's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

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amandalorianxo's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Middle / high school version of Amanda really liked this book. Re-reading this 10/ 15 ish years later and I don’t find this as engaging as I assumed I did when I was younger. The verse format felt unnecessary. There was no honest intention with this format, just grabbing at what was “popular” and or “different” for a 2010 book. In spite of the pitiful attempt at having a lesbian and gay character in this book, the quotes surrounding homosexuality were pitiful. I also found it impossible to believe that these parents of Kristina had NO IDEA their daughter was doing drugs. Shouldn’t the signs have all been there in her behavior? Also, I strongly did not like the ending. How ludicrous to think a baby would make someone’s life better - especially a 17 year old hard drug addict. Unfortunately we all know that baby is going to be addicted and someone should have sat her down and told her straight up the options / the real risks of taking care of a baby.
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half_bloodreader's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced
Written in 1st person, both in present tense and past tense. 

Novel in verse 

The author plays with form so that some poems can be read with dual meaning.

Crank is another name for methamphetamine, and that is what this story is all about. There are also other addictions like tobacco & other drugs, there's underage drinking too, as well as other risky behaviours. 

So, it's a story about the downfalls of addiction from the pov of a girl who had everything to succeed in life, until she danced with the "monster". And oh did she fall easy into the drug's routine. 

Now, I believe this is what they call "scared straight". The purpose of this hard-hitting book is to keep other teens away from addiction, and if it accomplishes that, all the better. I believe this is an important story, especially since it's based on the author's life. 

And that is the reason why this book is hard to rate. The author has her experiences as the mother of an addict, and who am I to rate that? Then again, she didn't write from the mother's pov, but the daughter's, and how accurate is her pov on the one going through addiction? Regardless, I appreciate that she showed how the world pales from dug use, which is why it's so hard to quit. Studies show drugs work like this: stimulating the area for pleasure to a high level. Your brain gets used to a level that won't match normal life stimuli, so if you stop everything will feel boring, grey, unappetising, dejection. 

There's some things I found issue with, and this book is so early 2000s, it shows. The casual homophobia, the gendered colours, the lack of contraceptives, the edginess, food describing skin tone (did you know Mediterranean has a colour flavour? Here I thought Mediterraneans came in all shades, as a Western European). 
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kimmykelly's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
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