Book Review Seven: Crank

Crank by Ellen Hopkins, published by Simon Pulse.

This may be my last Ellen Hopkins book for a while. Unless they put one on the strip shelf at work, or I find a decent cheap used copy. I'm not saying this is the last I'll read, just that I think I need a break. They're good, they're powerful and beautiful. However, they're also overwhelming. I may want to get away from my boring routine called life, but I don't want to do it by getting hooked on drugs or being abused. That's a change I would like to avoid, and unfortunately that's what happens when I read her books. I get so involved in the character's struggle (in this case Kristina/Bree) that I forget about Michaela. I become the abused. I become the addict. I become obsessed with the monster. I would prefer some time off from feeling like I'm stumbling, tumbling, crashing, burning, caught in a pit with wild wolves...

So, back to the story! Crank is the first installment in the Kristina/Bree trip with the monster (or crystal meth). If you can remember, I read Glass a while back and that was slightly confusing in the beginning because it followed Kristina's journey after Crank. Well, here I am with the full scoop and I have to say, it didn't disappoint. I expected more craziness and debauchery (I know, I know, she falls head over heels for crystal meth, loses herself in the high, constantly skips classes, sneaks out, lies to her family all to support this drug habit and I expected more? But if you read Glass it makes Bree look like a good schoolgirl in Crank). Kristina's first dive with the monster happens when she's on a visit with her biological estranged father in New Mexico. She falls for a boy there who introduces her to the monster, to Bree, and to love.

Through the course of the novel she becomes hooked, scores new connections, suffers heartbreak of the small and the volatile. She is violated, she is a willing victim, she is fearless and scared to death. She is in control, she is so far gone she doesn't know who she is anymore. This novel will take you on a journey and it will grab hold of you. Kristina will force you to confront her demons, which in turn will start a spiral of questions and doubts about everything you ever thought you knew about addicts. It's true, they're seduced by pleasure, by the adrenaline, by the feeling of being alive. But unless you can hear it firsthand or feel it yourself, I doubt you'll be able to understand. That's how I felt before this novel. I just couldn't comprehend. I just wondered, "so you feel good, what's the big deal?"

Here's an excerpt to get my point across:

Ecstasy Is Hard To Describe

It's like falling

softly floating

into a on your deciphering

pool of back codes

crystal circular in the

mountain beneath clouds

water vibrant spinning

sky dizzy

fast.

It isn't at all like going

clear throwing

out of yourself hallucinating

your in front black

head of a widows

lunatic runaway and black

mad train helicopters

insane behind you

crazy.

It's a lot more like jumping

into accepting

your own past forgiving

brain, failures yourself

ferreting freeing and those

what's self you love

inside destructive and even

demons those you

despise.

(pg. 428).

I'm grateful that I now understand a little more. If anything, I realize you can't fully understand it until you try it, but let Kristina's story be a message: you can't just try crystal meth and be done with it. It's a monster and it lets itself into your head. It becomes a part of you and you can't just escape or push that part away. You are now part of a life-long constant struggle for inner control and yes, sometimes you win. And sometimes the monster does.

edited to say: I have tried like five times to get that poem to look exactly as it does in the novel and for some reason I just can't get it to stay indented. Try and read them as 3 columns going vertically not horizontally. If you know how I can fix it, please let me know!