I feel that reading any book by Ellen Hopkins gives you a new outlook on how writers actually place their words and how to read other stories in different forms. It also affects the reader by having them read in a way they might not necessarily be used to. The form makes you pause where she wants you to pause, makes you see what words are important, and gives you an impression of what the part is about. How it was written shows how she wants you to read it. Not only with the story, but the way it was shown. As a poetry lover I had set my mind on reading this book, whether or not the plot was good. Crank one of the first stories I have ever seen that was written in poetry form. The originality of the book’s form is the first thing that captured my attention. The epic journey of a sixteen, going on seventeen, year old girl “flirtin’ with the monster” told in the one of the most original ways I have seen yet. Three weeks, a boy, and several highs later, and life is a downward spiral. A new side of her found in the hot city of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

No longer is she Kristina, the perfect daughter. Until one visit to her dead-beat dad and her world is changed. With a mom and a step-father expecting everything from her but gives her no praise, a lesbian sister, and a sports fanatic brother, everything is on her shoulders. The one striving for perfection and always falling short. The one who had all the family’s hopes and dreams pinned onto her. Kristina Georgia Snow is a daughter from a broken home. Crank by Ellen Hopkins is the story of one girl’s ecstatic ride turning into a struggling, disastrous journey. Update : If you liked WRECKED by Heather Henson, add CRANK to your reading list.Dive into the mix of romance, poetry, addiction, tragedy, and the austerity of life. It’s pretty amazing to me how Ellen Hopkins paints such vivid pictures with her words and draws us into the stories of people we might overlook or judge in real life. I think the thing that stands out to me is how starkly each scene is portrayed, even though it’s told in shorter lines of poetry rather than paragraphs of prose. This is the first novel in verse that I’ve ever read. They flow from scene to scene very smoothly, capturing the raw emotion of the heroine– her desperation, heartache– and the downward spiral of her addiction to Meth. Each poem captures the story in vivid detail. Ellen Hopkins captures the turmoil and grip of addiction in a raw, authentic manner as she tells the story of a girl caught in the same kind of addiction her own daughter has battled. CRANK is the story of Kristina Snow and the summer that changes her life, when she goes to visit her father and meets the “monster”, Crystal Meth.