Module 9 – Crank by: Ellen Hopkins

PLOT:  Kristina who was once a great teenage kid comes in contact with her worst, or should we say her best friend, “Crank” (methamphetamine) or should we call it the “Monster”.  Kristina who originally lives with her mother and step-father has the ideal life of a teenager.  Nice house, nice room and nice friends.  Kristina is 16 years old when she goes to visit her real father, whom she hasn’t seen in year, for three weeks and discovers she has an alter ego named Bree.  She quickly realizes that her father is a dead beat drug user who works at a bowling alley.  He lives in a very nasty apartment with not much furniture.  However, there is a neighborhood good looking teen boy, named Adam, who lives on the first floor of the apartment complex and he begins to gain some interest in Bree (Kristina) even though he has a girlfriend.  Adam is to blame for Bree’s (Kristina) addiction, he introduces her to drugs (crank) and she likes it.  There are a couple of times that her father joins in on the fun and gets high with her.  After the three weeks Kristina must return home and try to forget her past, except her past is addicting and so is Bree’s life style.  She quickly begins making new friends that will join her in her monster addiction to crank.  Kristina or Bree is faced with making very poor choices because she gets raped and pregnant.  She decides to keep the baby but continues with an inner struggle of wanting crank and Bree in her life.

Hopkins, E., (2004). Crank. NewYork, NY: Simon Pulse.

IMPRESSION OF THE BOOK:  I really liked this book because of the way it was written. Crank is a verse novel and is an easy, quick but detailed story.  I was really into this read.  At times I wanted to reach into the book and knock some sense into Kristina’s character but I know that is impossible. Bree is the alter ego who takes over Kristina’s perfect life.  Bree’s character is braver when talking to boys and making careless and life threatening choices.  Some of the parts that are pretty gruesomely detailed are how she feels when she is totally high.  Bree describes the feelings when she gets high for the first time. She states “Fire! Your nose ignites, flameless kerosene (and some say Drano) laced with ephedrine you want to cry powdered demons bite through cartilage and sinuses, take dead aim at your brain, jump inside want to scream troops of tapping at your feet fall into rhythm, marking time right between your eyes… through arteries and capillaries, pulsing, rushing, raging torrents pounding against your heart.” This type of description is throughout the entire book. It is very detailed and if you have never tried drugs then this could be one of the great descriptions of what it feels like and what the consequences are when doing drugs.  Every time Bree gets high she describes different feelings because she gets involved with stronger drugs than just cocaine. She tries meth, ecstasy and many laced drugs to get a higher effect.  Towards the end of the book you find out she is pregnant due to a rape situation.  This is where I totally want reach in the book and slap some sense into this character.  She decides she will keep the baby and fight the monster but the monster wins a few times. She tries really hard to stay clean for a few months but after having the baby she really can’t handle being a mom because of the crying and needs of the baby, and you just know that she will go back to using drugs.  The author does a great job leaving you curious as to what Kristina will do so you have to read the next book, Glass to find out.

REVIEWS:  Kirkus Reviews (2004)

Hypnotic and jagged free verse wrenchingly chronicles 16-year-old Kristina's addiction to crank. Kristina's daring alter ego, Bree, emerges when "gentle clouds of monotony" smother Kristina's life-when there's nothing to do and no one to connect with. Visiting her neglectful and druggy father for the first time in years, Bree meets a boy and snorts crank (methamphetamine). The rush is irresistible and she's hooked, despite a horrible crank-related incident with the boy's other girlfriend. Back home with her mother, Kristina feels both ignored and smothered, needing more drugs and more boys-in that order. One boy is wonderful and one's a rapist, but it's crank holding Bree up at this point. The author's sharp verse plays with spacing on the page, sometimes providing two alternate readings. In a too brief wrap-up, Kristina keeps her baby (a product of rape) while Hopkins-realistically-offers no real conclusion. Powerful and unsettling. (author's note) (Fiction. YA)

Kirkus Review. (2004). [Review of the book Crank, by Ellen Hopkins]. Kirkus Reviews Issue.  Retrieved August 3, 2013, from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ellen-hopkins/crank/

USE IN THE LIBRARY: This would be a good book to create a display in the library during Drug Awareness Week.  I would use along with other books to promote how drugs can really damage the body and mind.