Crank Essay

993 Words2 Pages

Do you ever feel you have everything under control when you really don’t? That’s Kristina Georgia Snow’s memo about meth, as her journey is followed through the Crank series. Crank is about a innocent, 17 year old girl named Kristina, who is on her way to graduating early when she has to go spend one month in the summer with her estranged father. While visiting her father, she falls in love and tries meth for the first time. The book follows her experience being addicted to the “monster” and the consequences that come with it such as hurting her friends and loved ones. The book ends with the teen becoming pregnant due to a product of rape. Glass, the second book in the series, starts off with Kristina, also known by her "alter ego" Bree, has the baby. She names her baby Hunter Seth. Kristina being clean during her pregnancy, quickly relapses and her life slowly starts to crumble around her. Ellen Hopkins own experience dealing with her daughter’s meth addiction influenced her theme of a life spiraling out of control shown through character, style and imagery in Glass.
On March 26, 1955 Ellen Hopkins was born in Long Beach, California. She was adopted by an older couple, her father Albert was 72 and her mother Valerie, was 42 at the time. Always wanting to meet her birth parents, Ellen found her birth mother Toni Chandler in the year 2000. She herself had been writing poetry her entire life. She also found out she has a half sister named Fran, and a birth father who she has yet to meet. Ellen had a cheerful childhood growing up in neighborhood full of famous people such as Elvis Presley, Bob Hope, Kirk Douglas and Arnold Palmer. She won almost every creative writing contest she entered at Santa Ynez Valley Union High School which ...

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..., you feel as if you are in Kristina’s shoes telling her story. Minimalist verses perfectly demonstrate Kristina’s dissociation and muddled despair. (Kirkus Reviews). The author really emphasizes meth as if it’s own character, giving it feelings and power. The emphasision of meth makes you believe that it’s the highly addictive “monster” that makes Kristina’s life spiral out of control and not her.
In Glass, Ellen Hopkins addresses the theme of someones life spiraling out of control through style, character, and imagery. Most critics believe the novel (and the entire Crank series), are Ellen’s best written books. She’s able to put her own real life experience on paper as if you are the one writing it. The book has easy to read poems and would be recommended to anyone 14 years or older. All of her books are a fun and easy read, while at the same time educational.

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