Helpful Score: 6
Wow...this book took me a few pages to get into just because of the weird style in which it is written. But once I was in, I was in, it hooked me & I was unable to put it down until I finished it. The style that at first gave me issues, really helps you to understand how the thoughts of an addict may work & gives you a little bit more understanding in how things happen so quickly with this drug. Make sure you read the dedication & authors note at the beginning.
Helpful Score: 3
a very moving book. this book is about a teens struggle with "crank" or meth. it details how she becomes a different person. it goes into great detail about how she feels while high, but also how she feels as she is coming down. most importantly, it details what she goes through, what she loses, due to her addiction. the size of the may put you off, but it's not that long of a book, it's just the way the book is written. it looks as if it is written as a poem, in stanzas.
Helpful Score: 2
This book is typed in a very creative style. It is hard to read at first, but once you get started it is hard to put down. Dont be turned off by the size of the book - it is a very light and easy read. The story itself is true to life and I hope everyone who reads it can live vicariously through Kristina/Bree and not have to geet & great the monster themselves. I cannot wait to read more of Hopkins works! You can't go wrong with this one!
Helpful Score: 2
An extreme, intensive story of a young girls journey from a normal life into one of a drug freak's.
Helpful Score: 2
Lyrical book about a young girl's struggle with a drug addiction.
The images that the book evokes are powerful. I understood the characters conflicts between desire for the drug and desire for control over her life.
I absolutely will read the next book.
The images that the book evokes are powerful. I understood the characters conflicts between desire for the drug and desire for control over her life.
I absolutely will read the next book.
Helpful Score: 2
Ellen Hopkins' "Kristina" books are the books that not only got me into YA but got me loving books in verse. I'll be forever grateful because before reading her books I would have never guessed I'd fall in love with either one.
Glass, Crank, and Fallout (the Kristina books) are by far my favorites. I've loved her others as well. I'd urge anyone to at least try one of her books. Even if you're not into the genre, not into verse, think about giving it a try - they're fantastic.
Glass, Crank, and Fallout (the Kristina books) are by far my favorites. I've loved her others as well. I'd urge anyone to at least try one of her books. Even if you're not into the genre, not into verse, think about giving it a try - they're fantastic.
Helpful Score: 1
I didn't really enjoy this book. If you enjoy this type of story where the main character gets lost in drugs and such, then this is a book for you. The narrative poem style is great for books, especially this one if you're into this genre.
Helpful Score: 1
Written in a diary-like format from the perspective of a teenager addicited to Methamphetamines. This is a good book for a parent to read, especially one concerned with their son or daughter developing an addiction. It provides insight to the addiction, but not much factual information in regards to the use of Meth.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Life was good
before I
met
the monster.
After,
life
was great.
At
least
for a little while.
Kristina Georgia Snow is the perfect daughter: gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. But on a trip to visit her absentee father Kristina disappears, and Bree takes her place. Bree is the exact opposite of Kristina -- she's fearless.
Through a boy Bree meets the monster: crank. And what begins as a wild, ecstatic rid turns into a struggle through hell for her mind, her soul -- her life.
This is Ellen Hopkins's first published work of fiction. Written in verse, Crank captures readers' attention from the first until the very last.
Life was good
before I
met
the monster.
After,
life
was great.
At
least
for a little while.
Kristina Georgia Snow is the perfect daughter: gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. But on a trip to visit her absentee father Kristina disappears, and Bree takes her place. Bree is the exact opposite of Kristina -- she's fearless.
Through a boy Bree meets the monster: crank. And what begins as a wild, ecstatic rid turns into a struggle through hell for her mind, her soul -- her life.
This is Ellen Hopkins's first published work of fiction. Written in verse, Crank captures readers' attention from the first until the very last.
I found this book to be very hard to read. Not because it is written in a way that is hard to understand, because it is written very simply, but because of the layout. I thought the book was written in the form of poetry (as it had been described to me by my sister), but it is indeed just broken up and laid out very strangely. I read it, and enjoyed the story line, but i could not get over how odd it was presented. If you don't mind reading a few words, then finishing the sentence on the other side of the page, or down a few rows than you may enjoy Crank. But if you like structure and format, this book may be irritating.
Ellen Hopkins' "Kristina" books are the books that not only got me into YA but got me loving books in verse. I'll be forever grateful because before reading her books I would have never guessed I'd fall in love with either one.
Glass, Crank, and Fallout (the Kristina books) are by far my favorites. I've loved her others as well. I'd urge anyone to at least try one of her books. Even if you're not into the genre, not into verse, think about giving it a try - they're fantastic.
Glass, Crank, and Fallout (the Kristina books) are by far my favorites. I've loved her others as well. I'd urge anyone to at least try one of her books. Even if you're not into the genre, not into verse, think about giving it a try - they're fantastic.
I have never read a book written in a syle like this before. It made for an interesting read!
I had this book on my shelf to read for a while and finally pulled it out to read on a whim. This was an absolutely creative and wonderful read. It is kind of a modern, more poetic, version of Go Ask Alice for a new generation.
Kristina is a good girl but like a lot of teenage girls she has things about herself she doesn't like. When she begs her mom to go spend the summer with her dad, things get bad. Kristina's dad is a druggie and his neighbors aren't much better. When Kristina falls for a hot guy named Adam she has her first experience doing crank. She loves it and the personality of Kristina starts to fall away and be replaced by a naughty, michevous girl named Bree. When Kristina goes home after the summer she thinks maybe she can put Bree away forever, but she can't...and her life spirals further and further out of control.
This was an awesome book partly because of the creative way the story is told. The story is told in verse, with short verses depicting events that happen to Kristina as her life spins further out of control. That's not all though, there are verses told within the verse. The verses are formatted in such a way that certain words are pulled out and to the side of the main part of the verse. If you read the pulled out words in order you will get another meaning to the verse; kind of a separate verse within the main verse. This was pretty much genius on Hopkins part and it was fascinating.
So, okay the book was very creative but was it in engaging? Absolutely. I had an incredibly hard time putting this book down. The whole time you are hoping Kristina can beat "the monster" and start putting her life together. At the same time watching how she descends into drug use is fascinating and absolutely engrossing. The whole time you are just hoping nothing bad will happen to her and cringing when it does.
This book really drives home the fact of how easy it is for a completely normal person to find themselves caught in a downward spiral like Kristina is. The other thing that is really pressed home is how the people who know and love Kristina act. Many of her friends just can't deal with her anymore so they don't. Her mother tries to help but doesn't have a grip on how much trouble Kristina is in; as a result Kristina ends up incredibly isolated. Really in the end the only person who can really help her is herself.
Given the subject matter this is a book for older teens, or maybe a cautionary tale for younger teens. Just be aware that there is some violence, rape, and (of course) lots of drug usage throughout this book. The books ties up pretty well and I was surprised to see that there are two more books to this series; Glass and Fallout.
Overall I loved this book. The style it is written in is creative, intriguing, and just absolutely genius. The story itself is realistic, intriguing and absolutely engaging. This is an excellent cautionary tale on drugs, but it is also a tale about how easy it is for a normal person to spiral out of control and isolate themselves. I will definitely be reading the next book in this series, Glass.
Kristina is a good girl but like a lot of teenage girls she has things about herself she doesn't like. When she begs her mom to go spend the summer with her dad, things get bad. Kristina's dad is a druggie and his neighbors aren't much better. When Kristina falls for a hot guy named Adam she has her first experience doing crank. She loves it and the personality of Kristina starts to fall away and be replaced by a naughty, michevous girl named Bree. When Kristina goes home after the summer she thinks maybe she can put Bree away forever, but she can't...and her life spirals further and further out of control.
This was an awesome book partly because of the creative way the story is told. The story is told in verse, with short verses depicting events that happen to Kristina as her life spins further out of control. That's not all though, there are verses told within the verse. The verses are formatted in such a way that certain words are pulled out and to the side of the main part of the verse. If you read the pulled out words in order you will get another meaning to the verse; kind of a separate verse within the main verse. This was pretty much genius on Hopkins part and it was fascinating.
So, okay the book was very creative but was it in engaging? Absolutely. I had an incredibly hard time putting this book down. The whole time you are hoping Kristina can beat "the monster" and start putting her life together. At the same time watching how she descends into drug use is fascinating and absolutely engrossing. The whole time you are just hoping nothing bad will happen to her and cringing when it does.
This book really drives home the fact of how easy it is for a completely normal person to find themselves caught in a downward spiral like Kristina is. The other thing that is really pressed home is how the people who know and love Kristina act. Many of her friends just can't deal with her anymore so they don't. Her mother tries to help but doesn't have a grip on how much trouble Kristina is in; as a result Kristina ends up incredibly isolated. Really in the end the only person who can really help her is herself.
Given the subject matter this is a book for older teens, or maybe a cautionary tale for younger teens. Just be aware that there is some violence, rape, and (of course) lots of drug usage throughout this book. The books ties up pretty well and I was surprised to see that there are two more books to this series; Glass and Fallout.
Overall I loved this book. The style it is written in is creative, intriguing, and just absolutely genius. The story itself is realistic, intriguing and absolutely engaging. This is an excellent cautionary tale on drugs, but it is also a tale about how easy it is for a normal person to spiral out of control and isolate themselves. I will definitely be reading the next book in this series, Glass.
Kristina is the perfect daughter: gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. Then she meets the monster: crank. And what begins as a wild ride turns into a struggle for her mind, her soul - - her life.
****************************************
When I started reading this book, because of the format I had decided I probably wasn't going to like it just because it the format was bothering me. Well, I was wrong. This book is worth reading and delivers a powerful message.
****************************************
When I started reading this book, because of the format I had decided I probably wasn't going to like it just because it the format was bothering me. Well, I was wrong. This book is worth reading and delivers a powerful message.
Great book! A page turner for sure!
A great read and it wasn't boring, I couldn't put the book down and it gives great insight to the lives of people who are going through illegal drug use.
read it in a nite-couldnt put it down
This book influenced me and some friends I recommended it to in good and bad ways. I wouldn't recommend this too anyone younger than 14 or 15. It is truly an amazing story and Definitely my favorite book but probably not good idea for teens who tend to get into trouble. Ellen Hopkins is by far my favorite author and I have read all of her YA books and they were all amazing just be careful letting younger kids read this book.
"Through a boy, Bree meets the monster: crank. And what begins as a wild, ecstatic ride turns into a struggle through hell for her mind, her soul -- her life."
Got this book for my daughters as per their request after reading "Go Ask Alice". They very much enjoyed this book.
My college son and his girlfriend are asking for the sequel. Since they both read it I got interested in what it was all about. I picked it up from my son's book shelf and started reading. I didn't put it down, as it only takes about 2 hrs to read. It was very interesting, but also extremely depressing. Who wants to see a good girl totally destroy herself. I personally think the author gives the addict too much pity, but she had to watch her daughter's similar life. The main character/addict, did after all, make the first choices to hang with scum and then use!
I liked the unique style of writing and the story, I just couldn't get into the very pro-life view of Hopkins books (it also shows up in "Impulse").
It took me about an hour and forty-five minutes to read, the eccentric and very, very accurately adolescent prose style flies, but taken all together it feels a bit more like a long short story than a novel. Kristina/Bree's descent into addiction is gripping and feels emotionally true. It wraps up extraordinarily quickly at the end and felt a little disingenuous with what I will call the baby ex machina. It was just okay for me. It felt a little simple.
this is a great book! awesome for teenagers into the whole punk rock scene.
This was the first Ellen Hopkins book I ever read and I absolutely loved it.. Literally couldn't put it down and read it in just a few days.. Since then I've become a big fan of Ellen Hopkins..
For the longest time now, I've been amused by and interested in drugs. No, not doing drugs. But seeing stories about people who do drugs. It amazes me how a substance can change a person so quickly. How it can make your life escalate and then sink it as quick as a heartbeat. How it can make you feel like you're at the top of the world, and once it's gone, the overwhelming need to have more. I have only seen it before on television. Skins (UK) to be exact. Seen the lives of countless teenagers being destroyed by a substance, right before my very eyes. But like the drug itself, I was addicted see more. I couldn't stop watching. I needed more, so I became attached to Crank.
I had heard about the books before, but it wasn't until after I had watched Skins (UK) that I had actually purchased it. I had a strange need for more stories about teens and drugs. I wanted to get into their heads. I needed to feel what they felt in the safest way possible. It became an addiction of my own, but hardly on the level of addiction those teenagers faced.
Crank is a novel written in verse-poetry. It follows a sixteen-year-old girl who discovers a monster. In sparse, beautiful words, she describes how her life changes and she becomes someone else, literally. She explains how she first got into drugs and what came in the aftermath. She tells us how her need for more made her life a true living Hell, and how it tore her away from her family. It shows us how Kristina is no longer Kristina, but how she is now a person much unlike herself, Bree.
I could not put that book down. I read for about half an hour when I first picked it in the early hours of the morning while the rest of the world slept. I got around hundred or so pages in before the following hours of the next morning, where I began to devour the book and refused could to put it down from then on. It had easily become my own drug, and I needed to feel the rush in one whole turn, instead small, uninspired spurts. Perhaps it is because the poetry was so much more refreshing and different from my usual prose, but something incredibly special about it made it impossible to ignore.
The writing style was fantastic. I am a newcomer to poetry, yet I loved every word that Ellen Hopkins wrote for me. I say me because I felt as if I alone read the novel, and that I was not simply part of the thousands of others who had read the book from all around the world. The words flowed so naturally and struck so many raw emotions into my heart. Not only that, but the words played our eyes, descending down the pages in different shapes and structures, like skylines in a vast city and beating hearts trying to break free from the pain.
The story was heartbreaking. To see what Kristina had gone through, and to have her think everything was just as it should be, set me on a rage. I wanted to desperately save this girl. I wanted to take her into my arms and hold her tightly until she had recovered. What made it even more emotional, however, was that Crank is based off a true story regarding Ellen Hopkins' daughter. Right from the start, Hopkins tells us that, âWhile the work is fiction, it is loosely based on a very true story-my daughter's.â Even though she did not go through everything Kristina had gone through, my heart still went out to her. I found myself crying at times, shedding the tears that Kristina didn't dare. I became the person she wanted to be. I wanted to feel safe and secure but she took me even further into Hell. She didn't do it alone, however. She had help in her decline, and it drew hatred from me toward those involved.
I must admit that at times I wonder what would happen to me if I were ever to take drugs. I wonder what might happen if I smoked weed or popped a few pills. Even though I read and see these stories, it does not show what I might go through. But, living in the lives of these teenagers, going down with them and not being able to get back up, it helps me greatly to stay away from these monsters and the destruction they cause. There are so many people out there, all over the world, who do not have that kind of help. They do not know what they are getting into when they take their first hit or their first puff or their first snort of their first line. The monster isn't indecisive. It will take any who are willing to let.
I had heard about the books before, but it wasn't until after I had watched Skins (UK) that I had actually purchased it. I had a strange need for more stories about teens and drugs. I wanted to get into their heads. I needed to feel what they felt in the safest way possible. It became an addiction of my own, but hardly on the level of addiction those teenagers faced.
Crank is a novel written in verse-poetry. It follows a sixteen-year-old girl who discovers a monster. In sparse, beautiful words, she describes how her life changes and she becomes someone else, literally. She explains how she first got into drugs and what came in the aftermath. She tells us how her need for more made her life a true living Hell, and how it tore her away from her family. It shows us how Kristina is no longer Kristina, but how she is now a person much unlike herself, Bree.
I could not put that book down. I read for about half an hour when I first picked it in the early hours of the morning while the rest of the world slept. I got around hundred or so pages in before the following hours of the next morning, where I began to devour the book and refused could to put it down from then on. It had easily become my own drug, and I needed to feel the rush in one whole turn, instead small, uninspired spurts. Perhaps it is because the poetry was so much more refreshing and different from my usual prose, but something incredibly special about it made it impossible to ignore.
The writing style was fantastic. I am a newcomer to poetry, yet I loved every word that Ellen Hopkins wrote for me. I say me because I felt as if I alone read the novel, and that I was not simply part of the thousands of others who had read the book from all around the world. The words flowed so naturally and struck so many raw emotions into my heart. Not only that, but the words played our eyes, descending down the pages in different shapes and structures, like skylines in a vast city and beating hearts trying to break free from the pain.
The story was heartbreaking. To see what Kristina had gone through, and to have her think everything was just as it should be, set me on a rage. I wanted to desperately save this girl. I wanted to take her into my arms and hold her tightly until she had recovered. What made it even more emotional, however, was that Crank is based off a true story regarding Ellen Hopkins' daughter. Right from the start, Hopkins tells us that, âWhile the work is fiction, it is loosely based on a very true story-my daughter's.â Even though she did not go through everything Kristina had gone through, my heart still went out to her. I found myself crying at times, shedding the tears that Kristina didn't dare. I became the person she wanted to be. I wanted to feel safe and secure but she took me even further into Hell. She didn't do it alone, however. She had help in her decline, and it drew hatred from me toward those involved.
I must admit that at times I wonder what would happen to me if I were ever to take drugs. I wonder what might happen if I smoked weed or popped a few pills. Even though I read and see these stories, it does not show what I might go through. But, living in the lives of these teenagers, going down with them and not being able to get back up, it helps me greatly to stay away from these monsters and the destruction they cause. There are so many people out there, all over the world, who do not have that kind of help. They do not know what they are getting into when they take their first hit or their first puff or their first snort of their first line. The monster isn't indecisive. It will take any who are willing to let.
