Thoughts on Crank

Crank by Ellen Hopkins was another novel that was very difficult for me to complete, but that I feel is a very necessary work to read.  I greatly enjoyed Hopkins’ writing style, and the artistry involved in the structure of the poems astounded me.  However, the topic matter was once again very challenging, and I grew very frustrated with Kristina while reading the novel.  I do believe that Crank has a very important message to convey to adolescents, but the subject matter is very challenging, and the topic could be potentially damaging for adolescents who are survivors of drug addiction or rape.  Because of this, Crank is a novel that must be taught very carefully.

What I found perhaps the most troubling was the lack of intervention by Kristina’s parents when they suspected that their daughter was in danger.  Like in many of the adolescent literature novels we’ve read this semester, the parental roles depicted in Crank left a great deal to be desired.  Kristina’s biological father is largely absent from her life, and when they do meet again, Kristina’s view of him quickly shifts so that he goes, “From daddy to dad in thirty seconds.  We were strangers after all” (Hopkins 21).  In addition to her absence in her life, Kristina’s father initiates her downwards spiral by exposing her to drugs, and by taking no initiative to stop her from becoming addicted.  In comparison, Kristina’s mother and step-father are saints, but they are still not entirely blameless in Kristina’s downfall.  They mostly leave Kristina to her own devices, not stepping in until it is far too late.  Her mother is unaware, and from Kristina’s perspective, uncaring after Kristina is raped, and although Scott attempts to intervene, it is too little too late.

Anderson portrays an adolescent experience that is accurate for some, but worlds away from the lives of other teenagers.  However, this serves to illustrate that there is no singular adolescent experience.  Some teenagers are incredibly goal oriented, and some have the misfortune of making a single mistake that turns their entire lives upside down.  It is important that both sides of adolescence are expressed within the young adult genre, and Hopkins’ real-life experiences from her daughter’s battle with addiction help to make the novel an accurate and powerful representation of the struggles of adolescent drug abuse and rape survivors.  It is a challenging topic to address, but it is one that our society must be more aware of in order to help adolescents who are struggling.

Overall, Hopkins’ novel tells a powerful, semi-biographical account of a teenager whose single mistake leads into a life altering spiral into a world of drugs, rape, and organized crime.  While it can be uncomfortable to address that teenagers do face such circumstances, it is vital that we as a society acknowledge this in order to improve resources for teenagers who need help.  While I would not personally teach this text to high schoolers due to its immensely difficult and potentially triggering subject matter, I do feel that it is a novel that everyone should read once, for both the artistic craft and the difficult, but necessary subject matter.