Crank by Ellen Hopkins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
An incredible piece of literature, Crank by Ellen Hopkins breaks the traditional rules of a novel to create something extremely insightful that seems to have life in it. Written entirely in poetry, each chapter captures a moment or thought of the story. The book is about Kristina, the common ‘good-girl’. The one who does her work without complaint, hangs out with ‘good’ friends, never disrespects her parents, and definitely never messes with drugs. However this all changes for Kristina with a “court ordered visit” (10) to her father’s house. There Kristina begins to walk on the wild side of life, meeting boys, smoking cigarettes, and soon starting to do meth. Absorbed in this world Kristina realizes who she thinks she wants to be, and that person isn’t Kristina. Instead, she decides to become the other side of herself, a flirtatious, brave and drug loving girl who calls herself Bree. However, once the summer draws to a close Kristina must return home, but Bree follows her and so do her new habits. These characters breath life, and their thoughts and emotions really do affect the reader. Additionally, I think the use of poetry adds to the dimension of the Bree/Kristina conflict. For example, Bree’s mindset might be narrating a moment in her point of view, making the reader see Bree’s way of approaching life: wild and never satisfied. However in the style of that specific poem, every stanza the last word might be set apart. When only these set apart words are read as their own sentence, Kristina’s innocent perspective of the situation is revealed. I think this adds so much to the reality of the characters, showing how Kristina can never truly choose which side of herself she wants to be, there is always regret. It would be simple to say that the life lesson of Crank is to stay away from drugs, however I believe that there is more to it than that. Kristina refers to meth as ‘the monster’, and her dependence on it as their relationship. She uses sayings like: “soon I was making love with the monster” or “you fly until you crash two days/two nights/no sleep,/no food,/come down off the monster/you crash real hard”. This reference to meth as a live being really illustrates how out of control Kristina is. She doesn’t have the power to stop any of it because the living being of the monster takes her against her will, if not Bree’s. Based on this I think that the message of remaining in control of your own life is really one that the book conveys. Overall, Crank is a brilliant and highly addictive book that I would certainly recommend. ~ Student: Naomi H.
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