RAK

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Thursday, March 22, 2012

Review: Glass by Ellen Hopkins





Publication Date: 8-21-2007
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Pages: 688
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased
Challenge: None

Goodreads Summary:


Crank. Glass. Ice. Crystal. Whatever you call it, it's all the same: a monster. And once it's got hold of you, this monster will never let you go.
Kristina thinks she can control it. Now with a baby to care for, she's determined to be the one deciding when and how much, the one calling the shots. But the monster is too strong, and before she knows it, Kristina is back in its grips. She needs the monster to keep going, to face the pressures of day-to-day life. She needs it to feel alive.
Once again the monster takes over Kristina's life and she will do anything for it, including giving up the one person who gives her the unconditional love she craves -- her baby.
The sequel to Crank, this is the continuing story of Kristina and her descent back to hell. Told in verse, it's a harrowing and disturbing look at addiction and the damage that it inflicts.


For real. I love books written in verse. I can’t get enough of them, and Glass is no exception. Just like Glass hooks you and doesn’t want to let you go, this book does the same.  I was hooked from the first page until the very end.   Kristina was doing really great controlling her urge to use the monster, but her control lapsed.  She wasn’t able to keep away from it and what happens is so sad.  Kristina is right back where she started in her addiction, but now she has a baby to care for.  A baby that she was breast-feeding.  A baby that craves her love and attention as much as she craves it from the baby.  Beyond addiction, Kristina makes new choices that put her further in the grasps of the monster.  She makes choices that are going to affect her life and the life of her baby forever.  I don’t want to say too much that will give away what happens in the story, but I can tell you it’s a good one.

Kristina is thrown back into her life of addiction while neglecting her duties as a parent.  She thinks no one will notice, but her parents, her sister, and her father all know what she’s doing.  Her father, the man who is doing it himself.  She is spiraling down further and further and just when it looks like there won’t be a way out, she makes a decision that is going to change everything. 

Ellen Hopkins writes with such an intensity that you can’t put the book down.  It was a hard book to read in terms of the subject matter and the realness of the situation, but it is a story that needs to be told.  I felt like Kristina’s story was so real and raw.  She had a life that no one wants, but some people just can’t escape from.  I’m still amazed that a story with such depth can be told in verse.  This was a great continuance from the first book, Crank.  I enjoyed finding out more about Kristina’s tale and what choice she was going to make, the monster or her baby.

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