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A review by xk8linx19
Crank by Ellen Hopkins
1.0
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.