Crank (novel)
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Crank is a novel by Ellen Hopkins publshed in 2004. It has so far one sequel named Glass.
[edit] Plot summary
The main character is Kristina Georgia Snow, a typical high school "good girl" leading an average life in Nevada.
Finally deciding to visit her absentee biological father, she travels away to New Mexico to see him for the first time in eight years. She goes through changes there, and even creates an alter-ego in her subconscious, whom she refers to as Bree. She is introduced to "crank" (methamphetamine), or the "monster", by a boy, and then is thrown into an addiction that dissolves the Kristina, and makes her become Bree. Bree is her exact opposite, and is daring. Bree is the one that makes all the choices, but it seems Bree is what she names as her hidden desires, passions, and wants as a teenage girl. Bree leads Kristina to the point of self-destruction, but a few people in the book are able to keep her surviving at different times. Her father, seems to be an antagonistic force in the book, as he does crank with Kristina her first time.
As the book progresses, it becomes clear how much the monster is changing her. She lashes out at her family uncontrollably. She changes her social clique completely. At one point, she is raped by one of her "friends". As her friends and family watch in shock, Kristina desperately tries to beat her addiction but 'Crank' is never far behind.
Kristina has three boyfriends during the book. The first is Adam ("Buddy"), whom she met while visiting her father. Adam is dating a girl named Lince, and betrays her by seeing Bree/Kristina. He introduces Kristina to the monster in a bowling alley. They fall in love, and he claims he will love Kristina forever, though they drift apart as the book progresses mainly because she is back in her hometown and because Adam is back together with Lince. He appears several time later in the book, but only through letters and phone calls, but towards the end, Kristina ends communication with him. Then Kristina runs into Brendan once she gets home. Brendan is the "good boy" who turns out to be unexpectedly bad. At one low point when Kristina is desperate for more crank, Brendan rapes her in exchange for it. Kristina's final boyfriend is Chase Wagner, the "bad boy" who is also not particularly attractive, but who does turns out to be unexpectedly kind and loving. To quote the book:
the most beautiful man
in the whole wide world
(despite what the rest of the world
could see),
showed me exactly how
making love should be."
The final few pages take place several months after the events. Her grandmother, with whom she has just gotten in touch with, passes away. Kristina describes the highlights of her last seven months of pregnancy, and the lowlights. Kristina is now a seventeen-year-old mother of her and Brendan's son, Hunter Seth, who she raises with help from her mother. Chase Wagner, who was originally thought to be the baby's father, wants to stay with Kristina to raise the baby, but she urges him to follow his dreams to USC, where he ends up telling her in a letter that he is going to stay in Los Angeles. She tells the reader her experience with "the monster" and how addiction is "more than a word." Although, the ending is written in a dark tone, as Kristina reveals that the monster "is calling her out of the door" at that very moment.
In an author's note in the beginning of the novel, its author, Ellen Hopkins, states the book is loosely based on the events of her daughter, who also became involved with a life full of drugs and a teen pregnancy. She describes how it all worked out, but how drugs are very serious and life-ruining. The book is an example of one life that was majorly impacted in a drug-related struggle.
