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.
