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A review by kellyhager
Flirtin' With the Monster: Your Favorite Authors on Ellen Hopkins' Crank and Glass by Ellen Hopkins, Cinda Williams Chima, Terri Clark, Megan Kelley Hall, Niki Burnham, Gail Giles, Susan Hart Lindquist, Micol Ostow, Mary Bryan
5.0
This is my first foray into the world of Ellen Hopkins but it won't be my last. I'm pretty sure all of her novels are written in verse, but I know Crank and the other two books in the trilogy are. I'm always hesitant to read series-of-poems-as-novels, although this book makes me question why that is.
Anyway. Kristina is 17 and by all accounts a really good girl. She's the one who has a small group of really good friends, always does her homework, gets along with parents and siblings. You know the type. And then she goes to visit her dad for a few weeks over the summer. She meets a boy and starts down the recreational drug use path. And then her life, as she knew it, was over. She starts going by Bree and her life goes from saving money to get a car to spending money to get cocaine.
I know this book pretty much lives on the banned book list but as a parent, I'd pretty much make my hypothetical kids read it once they became teenagers. It's sad and scary and drives home the fact that it's not just "those types of kids" that end up using drugs. It's smart kids, kids from good families with parents who care about them and are actively involved in their lives. And it shows them that most of the time, you may not realize you have a problem until it's too late to do something about it easily.
Amazing, heartbreaking book. I'm about to start the sequel.
Anyway. Kristina is 17 and by all accounts a really good girl. She's the one who has a small group of really good friends, always does her homework, gets along with parents and siblings. You know the type. And then she goes to visit her dad for a few weeks over the summer. She meets a boy and starts down the recreational drug use path. And then her life, as she knew it, was over. She starts going by Bree and her life goes from saving money to get a car to spending money to get cocaine.
I know this book pretty much lives on the banned book list but as a parent, I'd pretty much make my hypothetical kids read it once they became teenagers. It's sad and scary and drives home the fact that it's not just "those types of kids" that end up using drugs. It's smart kids, kids from good families with parents who care about them and are actively involved in their lives. And it shows them that most of the time, you may not realize you have a problem until it's too late to do something about it easily.
Amazing, heartbreaking book. I'm about to start the sequel.