Review: Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Title: Crank

Author: Ellen Hopkins site

Pages: 537

Released: 10/05/2004

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Format: Paperback

Source: Library

“Life was good before I met the monster. After, life was great, At least for a little while.

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.”

-from cover

It all began when Kristina (protagonist) went to visit her long absent father. It’s not the heartwarming, reunion she was hoping for. Going to the bowling alley every night, watching her father follow around drug dealers and “partying” isn’t exactly her idea of fun. She meets the “hot” boy next door, Adam, and introduces herself as Bree. Bree becomes an alter ego for Kristina to blame her destructive behavior on. They play boyfriend girlfriend for a week, then he introduces her to drugs. Everything goes downhill from there. Soon enough she’s hooked. Though her little fling doesn’t follow her home, the monster does. The “monster” is Kritina/Bree’s addiction. Crank basically follows Kristina’s downward spiral into drugs, and all kinds of other trouble.

Crank is a New York Times Bestseller and has plenty of hype surrounding it. If you haven’t heard about it by now, you’ve probably been living under a rock, or illiterate.  So is Crank deserving of the hype? Absolutely.  It is unique in many ways. The writing style   is definitely very creative.  Written in poems with more than one way to read its pages, and discover hidden meanings. 

This book is definitely a good to turn you off of drugs. There is one thing that doesn’t make sense to me; why does she get into drugs in the first place? I don’t find the explanation in the book satisfactory. It revolves around her getting together with Adam in the first place. Even though he already has a girlfriend, he basically makes a grab for her and she lets him. Her physical attraction shouldn’t be enough to make Kristina go along with all the things Adam has her do. And claiming “Bree made me do it” doesn’t sound very convincing.

The other thing that bugs me in this book is that it makes it seem as if 90% of the population is doing some sort of drugs. I find that very hard to believe

My misgivings aside I really did enjoy this book. It really is a books that anyone and their sister should read. This book is very thick, but very fast moving, a real page turner. And I liked that all the “cute” boys weren’t perfect. In fact, some of them were downright horrific.  It has certainly earned it’s praise.