I just got about 100 pages deeper into Crank and it is so extremely intense. I love this book. There are so many things to love about it. One thing that is really interesting that I think everyone should read it for or at least pick up the book and flip through it for is some of the sonnets are written in the shape of images.( like a house or an arrow) That is self makes the book more interesting I think. With every turn of the page there is something new and exciting to read about our character. She has traveled down to see her dad who she has not seen since her parents have gotten a divorce. While she is down there she realizes all the reasons her mother has left him and still hates him. He is still a drug abuser, a low life, had a low paying job and does not want to clean him self up. He works at a bowling alley under the table where he gets and abuses the drug coke. While Kristina is down there she meets this boy and falls in love stealing him from the girl who lives down stairs. This whole time that she is with this lover Adam, who everyone calls "buddy" she tells him to call her "Bree" her other half. When she is "Bree" she is not her self she does strange things she tries Crank,the "monster." Her father does not stop her, instead he just does a line with her and lets her walk home alone where she gets raped by three men. There are just so many things that happen with in 100 short pages that are so engaging. She has sex for the first time with Adam and Adam's girl friend see's and jumps out of her bed room window. There are a lot of things as a writer that you can incorporate to keep a reader truing the page and I think that Hopkins has really done it in this situation.
As a reader you picture and imagine what is going to happen next and with most box that I have read like the hanging tree I could guess and guess right what was going to happen next but with this book as i flip the page to see what happens next i find that I am wrong and that the writer has thrown me for a loop. As a reader this is something that I look for in a GREAT book. This book i would recommend to any person of all age levels. maybe 8 grade and up.
Ellie,
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad that you're drawn to this book and for all kinds of exciting reasons. The text forms are interesting to look at and have important things to tell us about the story. The plot is fast-paced and unpredictable. However, I would argue with you a little about the age this text is appropriate. 8th graders are still at a concrete operational stage, right? Or most of them (think adolescent development). I'm not sure that reading about rape, drug use with parents, sex, etc., is something that many 13 year olds are ready to process in a mature way. I think they could read the text, but I'm not sure it would be something most of them could get through. I'll bet there are some 8th graders who could do well with it so it's good you could recommend it to them.