And I am writing this review as much for myself AND for all the people who may never read these words just as much as I am writing for you guys who will read them. Clawing at the walls of my psyche for release.

And maybe use this space, my own personal cyber-writing pad as a way to get out my inner junk. Because I don't know you guys on a face-to-face level, I really feel as if i can be honest. However, I have come to the conclusion that sometimes I need to resort to unorthodox fighting methods in order to keep the demons at bay. Or make my demon battles public knowledge. 99.9% of you guys also don't know me in real life, but if you did, you would know that I am not a person who likes to air my dirty laundry for people. But I am, for the first time admitting to all of you that the main reason is because I've spent the majority of this summer fighting with my personal demons. That's because I've been dealing with a lot of personal shit on my plate. Gee, i seem to be writing a lot of personal reviews lately, don't I? As some of you may have noticed, I haven't spent a lot of time on here or even been reading much this summer. Time for another brutally honest and very personal review from yours truly. WARNING: The language in this book is as crude as would be expected given the pseudo-life drug addicts slip into. The flow of words, spacing and grouping seem to mimic the rhythm of the drug and how Bree feels it, or the booze, cigarettes, lack of sleep, or whatever event/emotion she is experiencing. Although I'm familiar with other books which use this poetical technique, I've never seen it used to such creepy perfection. Each page is a different shape, direction and interplay of italics and plain text. To add to the overall eerie effect, Hopkins writes the entire book in sculpted verse. After her introduction to crank, or 'the monster' as she refers to it throughout the book, she discovers this wild, seductive, bad girl inside her named Bree. She was born and lived as Kristina for 16 years. So although Crank is technically a novel it's more correctly a fictionalized autobiography written from the perspective of the young teen, Kristina/Bree. Ellen Hopkins first novel is based on her own tragic experience as a mother of a crank (meth) addict. My daughter brought Crank home from the school library and also read it in a day it's positively riveting. I did not like this book at all and yet I am forced to admit it is powerful, important, scary-as-you-know-where and should be read by every parent of teenagers today.

This is one of those books I can't give a star rating to-at least not by the definitions goodreads assigns.

Crank book