Welcome to the Crank-y World

I apologize (really) for the lack of post the past week. I am afraid this is gonna happen a lot nowadays since I [and by "I", I mean my parents] want [me] to focus on my studies (for the last quarter of school ahh) and I am currently receiving repercussions from my lack of performing the said task for the third quarter of school so yeah.

Anyway, for the fourth week of the first month of the year, I am gonna try to compensate for the lack of the review. (Long post down there)

 This month's recommendation is the Crank trilogy by Ellen Hopkins. I was meant to review the third novel last Saturday but wasn't able to for some reasons, so I'm gonna try to squeeze some of it in this post.

 Anyway, the Crank trilogy is basically about the downfall of A-plus student and perfect daughter Kristina Georgia Snow's life as she immerse and discover the usage of drugs. Particularly crank or as commonly put in this novel as: "the monster." We witness her walk with the monster as she, like a tree, start to lose the leaves from her stems and loosen her grip on the clump of land she's been planted in.

 Notice how I said/typed "witness" because really, whilst reading all the books in the trilogy, everything you can do is see/watch things happen. Like Eleven's regeneration to Twelve. You're just about to react and shout "no no non no no, do not do that, Kristina, no no" but in the blink of an eye it just... happens. And that's crazy! And very well put at the same time. Because you know, sometimes in life, we value some people in our lives so much we wouldn't want anything bad happening to them, but see, there comes a time when even how much we want them to not do something, we have no shit against it because in the end, they make the choices and we're left to do nothing but watch. That's exactly how it feels riding the roller coaster that is called the Crank trilogy. You learn to care about Kristina [or maybe not really, but] you don't want her to dive into the world of druggies and you, being able to do nothing [but watch] is just... bullshit. But like I said, that's the reality of life whether we like it or not.

 Off to the writing. These novels are written in poetry form, but still, told in a prose way. It's quite tricky and fun to read (especially those pages wherein all the words just seem to be floating anywhere on the paper, oh yes); it just takes some getting used to. The writing itself, in a nutshell, is just beautiful. Surreal. Unsettling at times, yes, but Ellen Hopkins is actually the queen of poetry writing because her writing is just amazing. I love how she puts things out. I love how she describes the character's feelings. How she turns anger and guilt and nervousness into something even stronger. Into making it feel like it's gnawing on you as well. Into making it feel as though you feeling it the way the character does. I love hoe she puts as something as it is and something different entirely at the same time. How she makes it sound not like the usual strong feelings we read about a lot. I love how she can draw me in the world that's completely stranger to me. How she enticed me to urge [myself on continue on reading] no matter how uncomfortable I felt. Just brava. A++ for the writing.

 Now let's give you brief summaries for each of the novels in bullet form.

• Crank is the beginning of everything. The alpha, the mastermind. Here, we witness Kristina--Bree take on the world of drugs. Walk with the monster, leave her past away and shut out of the world she used to live in. We see how this adventure ruined her life and the lives of the people she loves/that loves her. (On the plus side, there's some mushy ship I shipped  + a cute little thing ooh) {goodreads page}
• On Glass, obviously, it's the continuation of what's happened in Crank. We continue on witnessing Kristina take the path of the monster and well, to much everybody's facepalms, she begins to deal as well. Here, she meets Trey Shepherd. A "friend" of her fellow monster path walker, Robyn. Also, in this novel, she tries [her best(?)] to clear off of the meth path for her baby, Hunter, who had been born just before Glass happened, but fails to do so. {goodreads page}
• Now in Fallout is a completely different thing. The story is set nineteen years after Glass and this one is narrated by three of Kristina's eldest children: Hunter, Autumn and Summer. Now this one in one word, is crazy. Not bad crazy, but actually quite good crazy. Because we get to hear from her children. The ones, besides her family, who suffers from the consequences of Kristina's drug addiction. I enjoyed hearing about Hunter and Autumn the most. With Hunter, we saw him actually deal with Kristina when he was still a baby. Autumn on the other hand, didn't. Didn't even know about her (Kristina) and Trey. And like the author had said herself, this is the most powerful of the three. {goodreads page}

 Before you think of purchasing this series, please be reminded that it has explicit content in it. There's drugs, sex and alcohol so if you're not comfortable with those topics, I suggest you don't read it. On the contrary, I suggest you do because this is a very powerful set of books. This taught me so much about a lot of things and it made me aware of the bigger world outside this circle I'm moving in.

'Til next time!

:-)

P.S. This trilogy is recommended for ages 15 and above.
P.P.S. I won't be able to go on and update my blog as much nowadays, but I'm going to try my best. I can't assure two posts a week for now because of this thing called school, so I'm just gonna dry by a queue (hopefully) every now and then.