Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Crank
Ellen Hopkins
ISBN 978-0-689-86519-0
537 pages
Simon Pulse, 2004

Genre: Issue Novel, Controversial, Verse Novel

Readers Annotation
While visiting her estranged father, gifted high school junior Kristina becomes hooked on crystal meth. Her life soon spirals out of control.

Plot Summary
Good girl Kristina hasn't seen her father in eight years; during her parents' divorce, her mother fought for sole custody, declaring his numerous addictions made him an unfit parent. A judge orders her to visit him, so Kristina flies from Reno to Albuquerque for a three-week visit. Annoyed by her mother's self-obsession and remarriage, Kristina looks forward to being reunited with her daddy, but from the moment she's reunited with him at the airport, it's clear that her dreams won't measure up to the reality. Hanging around at her father's squalid apartment, Kristina meets a boy named Adam. Impulsively, she introduces herself as Bree. Though Adam already has a girlfriend, they're immediately attracted to one another. Adam introduces Bree to crystal meth--also known as crank or the monster.  Her father, also a crank user, snorts up with them. Bree loves the high. However, things end badly when Adam's girlfriend sees them kissing and jumps off a balcony, ending up in a coma.

When it's time for Bree to return home, Adam promises to love her forever. She flies home high. Her mother almost senses something is wrong, but her family is so caught up in their own lives that no one notices the huge changes in Kristina.  Emboldened by her newfound confidence as Bree, she becomes bored with her old friends and starts hitting on new boys at school, including Chase, the school's bad boy, and Brendan, a beautiful lifeguard. Both Chase and Brendan are crank users, and as Bree looks around the world with new eyes, she notices crank use everywhere, including on the cheerleading squad. For awhile it seems she might quit, but after Adam dumps her and Brendan shows his true colors, she turns to crank for comfort. Then she can't stop chasing the monster. She's lost all her old friends, she's failing school, and her family starts to notice something is wrong, not to mention the fact that she's almost drained her entire savings. Can Bree ever return to Kristina, whose life was more boring but safe and secure? Will the monster ever release its hold on her life?

Critical Evaluation
Like all of Ellen Hopkins' novels, Crank is written in free verse. The story is told through a series of poems. Hopkins plays a lot with form in these poems; in one, words on the verso line up in neat columns, showing the order Kristina's life had before crank. Words on the recto are scattered all over the page, making it hard to read and showing the chaos of Bree's life on crank. In another, as Kristina longs for the comfort of home, the words take the shape of a house.

Hopkins wrote the novel about her own daughter's experiences with crystal meth addiction. Before the story starts, she tells the readers about the story's origins, which may make readers take the story to heart more than they would if they figured it was just another cautionary tale. Hopkins explores exactly why Kristina started to use drugs and why it was so appealing. While Kristina's life looks perfect on the surface, in reality, she has resented her mother for her remarriage and her focus on herself and a burgeoning writing career. She also blames her mother for her estrangement from her father. Though even she has to admit that her mother was probably right to excise him from their lives completely, enough tension exists in their relationship that she is unable to confide in her mother once things start to go bad in her life.  Her stepfather is actually an excellent parent, the first one to suspect Kristina is in trouble, but Kristina resents his very presence in her life.

Hopkins is effective at showing why the drug is so appealing to Bree at first and how it sucks her into a completely different life experience. She meets new friends both good and bad--Brendan turns out to be truly evil, while Chase is a sensitive soul. The new experiences she has at first are exciting and dangerous, but by the time she realizes how much she has given up, it is too late to turn back. At that point, her addiction has completely taken hold, and she needs the drug just to function; it's completely deadened her emotions and she's unable to feel anything unless she's high.

It's an engrossing read; I stayed up late to finish it and can't wait to pick up the sequel. While the book ends on a slightly hopeful note, I have a feeling that Bree will soon be back in the grip of the monster.

Additional Books in the Series
Glass (2007) tells the continuing story of Bree/Kristina. A third book, Fallout, is due in 2010.

About the Author
Ellen Hopkins is known for her contoversial novels, which are all written in free-verse. Crank and its two sequels are based on the true experiences of her daughter, a crystal meth addict. Her other books include Burned, reviewed elsewhere in this blog, about a girl raised in an abusive Mormon household, and Impulse, about three teens whose paths cross while they're in a psychiatric hospital.

Curriculum Ties
This book is probably too controversial to be included in any school curriculum, but if it were able to be used, it could be used in a health class to engage kids in honest dialog about drug use.

Booktalking Ideas
1. Explain Kristina's transformation into Bree--her personality change and her drug use, and the influence each has on the other.
2. Talk about the three boys in Kristina's life: Adam, Chase and Brendan. Explain why she is attracted to each, and what their flaws are.
3. Talk about Kristina's family life. Why does she fall into drugs so easily? Why doesn't anyone notice how drastically she has changed?

Reading/Interest Level
This book's subject matter make it appropriate for high school students and adults.

Challenge Issues
The whole book is a challenge issue: from its primary subject matter (teen drug addiction), to the things it leads to (unsanitary tattoos, sex, rape, teen pregnancy, and general deliquency). There are also strong swear words, and Kristina/Bree's sister is a lesbian.

Should the book be challenged, the librarian should ideally read the book to be able to properly defend it; if that is not possible, s/he should read as many professional reviews as possible about the book and read descriptions of the potentially controversial content on a site like Common Sense Media. The librarian should also be able to explain and defend the library's selection policy.

To defend the book, the librarian could point to the book's fairly positive reviews, its overwhelming popularity, and its awards (such as being named an  ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers and an ALA Popular Paperback). The librarian could also point to statistics about teen drug use, including teen meth use, as proof that the topic is quite relevant to students and explain that Hopkins meant the book as an honest portrayal of the drug that would help teens decide against using it.

Selection Criteria
I chose to read Burned because of its inclusion in section 10's presentation on controversial literature. I enjoyed that book, and while reading reviews of that novel, everyone mentioned the overwhelming popularity of Hopkins's first novel, Crank. This inspired me to read the book.