Thoughts on Crank

By -
I did not personally enjoy reading Crank. While it was a quick read, I found the structure hard to get through. Overall I think it is a meaningful text and one that is worthy of consideration for teaching in a high school classroom. The most interesting aspect of this book to me was how Kristina's life spirals out of control because of her search to fit in. A lack of resources and support around her is what ultimately takes her life from the right track to completely off the tracks.

I could be naive about it, but I do not feel that meth is a big issue among adolescents. I think it's a problem that reaches the adult population more, but I do think there are parallels between drug use and young adult readers. I feel that drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and pain pills are the ones that impact teens more, so I wonder why the author chose to use meth in this story. I agree with her portrayal of drug use, but I didn't feel that meth was the best drug choice to use for a young adult book. Either way there is still a lot of value in examining drug use in general and why teens choose to make that choice.

Kristina gets caught up with some troublesome male characters, and I think the relationship with her parents and her stepfather played a part in that. It's clear that she is desperately looking for something to feel apart of. Parent relationships and the amount of support that teens feel from their parents is an important issue to look at when examining adolescent literature. This relates to Speak because both Melinda and Kristina have issues with their parents. The difference is that Melinda had more support and people to turn to.

Personally I could connect to the peer pressure, as I'm sure a lot of teens can. Saying no is easier said than done, because you always feel that ultimately you will be in control of what happens to you. Once that control starts to slip, like as Kristina becomes super reliant to the drug, is when decision making can become problematic.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm
Read more

Speak and the Symbolism of Nature

By Anonymous -
   Laurie Halse Anderson's,  Speak , dives into the murky, muddy waters of adolescent rape culture. When the book was published in 1999, rape was not a comfortable topic to discuss with adults, let alone teenagers. Anderson writes about Melinda Sordino and her freshman high school experience which is turning out to be rather negative. Soriano stands as a thriving young role model for struggling teenage girls all over the world. Although she isn't an outstanding student or have plenty of friends to juggle, through Melinda, other young women can see that it's completely normal and okay to struggle in high school not only academically, but socially and emotionally. One of my favorite parts of the novel isn't a super obvious quality. Throughout the novel, Melinda's attitude changes and grows with the coming of spring and through nature and art, she learns to move past her troubling end of summer experience and once again find the importance of her voice.    Melinda st
Read more