Thursday, April 7, 2011

first book review - Crank

[5. Find out about the author. How did they end up writing this particular book? How is the author's life reflected in the book?]The book Crank by Ellen Hopkins is fiction story about a girl who struggles to fight a drug addiction. In this book the main character Kristina/Bree (it isn't clear, but it seems as though she has some sort of split personality disorder?) goes to Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit her dad for a few weeks. She hasn't seen him since she was a little girl, so she is somewhat surprised to find that he is a 30 -40 year old man who works at a bowling alley, lives in a run down apartment, and does drugs during his free time. While she is on this visit, Kristina meets a boy named Adam and together, he gets her to try crank. During this trip she somewhat becomes addicted to this drug and when she gets home she begins looking for a way to get it.

After reading the author's note at the beginning of this book, I have learned exactly how this book reflects Ellen Hopkins' life.
"While this work is fiction, it is loosely based on a very true story- my daughter's... The monster did touch her life, and the lives of her family. My family."
In this book, crank is often referred to as "the Monster".  Just after reading this particular section of the book about the author's life, it is pretty obvious that she wrote it about her daughter and the struggles her drug addiction put on the author and her family. I have so far made it about half way through the book, however it is just at the part where she is back home with her mom, step dad, little brother and older sister. As the reader, we already know that she is soon going to find a way to get crank, but I haven't reached the part where the author clearly goes into depth about Kristina's addiction. The  author's note also mentions a baby at the end of the book (which is kind of a spoiler to the reader) and that this baby is real and that the author and her husband now takes care of this baby. However, there isn't much mentioned about what happens to her daughter, but maybe the end of the book will be the same as what happens to Ellen Hopkins' daughter in real life.

3 comments:

  1. I find this interesting because my book (A Child Called It), as I learned yesterday is about something that really happened to the author. It makes books so much more real when the author has personal experience with the topic. You can imagine a situation a certain way, but you may never really understand it until it happens to you which is why a book about drugs from an author that has been involved with drugs is so informative to people who have never been there.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really liked the question you chose, because I tried this and it was hard. I had to use Wikipedia and search up my author and that still did not help, but you found a way to take advantage of the little note the author puts in the beginning of the book. Some questions I have for this book are: Why do you think the author wrote this book? and How do you think the ending will be without reading it? Overall, I really liked the question you answered and how you answered it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Billy get out of here... stop stalking everyone.

    Nice work Karisa, though you can properly introduce the CD with a little bit more dynamic. The intro is awesome, though this type of ook is not my taste. Also, i think before the commmentary u should do something that warn there are spoiler in the passage. this way it easier and more efficient.

    ReplyDelete