Ellen Hopkins first novel is based on her own tragic experience as a mother of a crank (meth) addict. My daughter brought Crank home from the school library and also read it in a day it's positively riveting. I did not like this book at all and yet I am forced to admit it is powerful, important, scary-as-you-know-where and should be read by every parent of teenagers today. The last several poems summarised the end of the story too much, meaning it lost the emotional impact it had carried in the rest of the book.This is one of those books I can't give a star rating to-at least not by the definitions goodreads assigns. However, the ending felt quite rushed compared. The book was well paced and being told in verse didn’t hinder it carrying a strong narrative. Yet, as with my previous point, it didn’t really matter that much to me because it’s more of a character and emotion driven story that a plot focused novel. The plot was also fairly predictable in places, with some eye rolling on my part at some points which appeared to be presented as ‘twists’ but which weren’t all that surprising. However, I didn’t feel this was as big an issue as it would be in other books since the focus of the story is very much on Kristina’s internal conflict with her addiction. The other characters were fairly typical and flat as they weren’t given the time to become well rounded characters. This reflects the erratic Kristina and the highs and lows of her addiction. The poems are written in erratic stanzas that range across the page, with some of the verse in ‘normal’ stanzas and some spread across the page, others formed in shapes, and many other myriad and interesting styles. The verse novel form particularly suits the subject matter in this case, and Hopkins uses the verse brilliantly, fully capitalising on its potential.

I don’t know much about drug addiction and have never read a book about it, so I found Hopkins’s blatant and open address of the issue difficult to read but enlightening. While Impulse looked at mental health, Crank follows its protagonist through drug addiction.

Once again Hopkins tackles a serious issue head on. I was pleasantly surprised to have enjoyed the verse novel form when I read Impulse, and was keen to read more by Ellen Hopkins. Crank is the second book by Ellen Hopkins I have read and, like Impulse, takes the form of the novel in verse, or verse novel.

Crank book series order