One of my own hesitations about verse novels is that… well, where is the novel? But I am once again wooed by verse, these poems don’t need all the words of a traditional novel to tell their story, they use the page, the contrast between the black typeface the blankness of the white, they use type settings and page turns.
Hopkins’ creates this eerie mood, it feels like the reader is walking on eggshells as Kristina becomes Bree and begins to shatter, and to enhance this mood is the way the verses are sculpted. The wisdom, or advice here is: don’t let drug addiction “just happen” to you. For Kristina, who becomes wild, seductive, bad girl Bree, meth addiction “just happened.” I can just see so many people, young and old, explaining their actions in this way: “It just happened.” and Hopkins allows us readers into that perspective. This aspect, which can seem small, is huge for me. Of course there is a decision there, but it feels effortless, natural and then the book sweeps you onward down the spiral of addiction. I can feel it happening as she steadily moves towards taking meth but, well, it just happens. Looking back over those first pages it is barely noticeable why or how Kristina begins taking drugs – she is visiting her father, he’s a deadbeat working in a bowling alley and living in a shack ( not a palace) and though he is already part of the drug crowd it isn’t him that ropes her in, and it isn’t necessarily a boy (Adam) either. So, while it isn’t delightful (as some argue literature should be) it is certainly unforgettable as we read Christina seamlessly slip into drug addiction, sex and the decisions one might make to stay in that world. It’s A brutal way of giving advice through a medium and through a perspective that might just have readers sit up and take heed. This opening poem sets up this first book, in addition to setting the tone and establishing Hopkins’ free verse style, it establishes that drug addiction is an endless cycle that begs the question – what, or who, is the monster in this relationship? And, in the end, does blame really matter?Īs I said before, the book isn’t necessarily for enjoyment, though the poetry in it’s free verse formatting is certainly achingly beautiful and poignant, but more a way to share experience. To tell you the truth, I didn’t really like it at all but I could not put it down.Ī real life horror story, Crank follows Kristina/Bree as she rapidly descends into drug addiction.
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