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A review by sariahsharp
Crank by Ellen Hopkins
4.0
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.