Reading Response

Critical Thinking Question: How does this book help you think about social issues you care about or causes you are committed to?

Drug addiction is an important social issue being faced all over the world. “Crank,” by Ellen Hopkins discusses many social issues that Kristina goes through and drug addiction is the biggest one. However, it also discusses problems like, low self-esteem, and problems regarding her father. The author did a great job of teaching the reader about these issues, and I can tell the author cares about these issues as much as I do.

First of all I want to talk about the theme of drug addiction in the book. Not only does the main character Kristina do drugs, her boyfriend, her dad, and her “friends” do too. Kristina meets this new boy who she really likes who is talking about and doing, drugs. “Been smoking pot since I was 13 couldn’t quit if I tried.  Besides why try? It keeps me happy, mellow,”(67). Adam is a big character is Kristina’s life. You shouldn’t need drugs in life to be “happy”. This goes for all the people in the world who are addicted and this is what the author wants you to know. Another part of the book is Kristina talking about Adam doing drugs worse than just pot. “You might call him lazy, it least when the drug of the day is green (…) the white stuff was a different story. He’d stay up all night, eating zip, bowling, and snorting line after line. Rent money, right up the nose (…) we used to do coke. Now it’s crank. Meth,”(68). This is a significant quote because it shows that drugs are addicting and it keeps getting worse. This is to show people who do drugs that a little leads to a lot and what happens when they do drugs like meth.

Another issue in the book is problems she faces with her father. First of all her father is an alcoholic. Secondly, he was never there for her. He just now wanted to be part of her life and you can see that he doesn’t have parent qualities. “Instead we returned to small talk. Which is probably all we’ll ever manage, all we’ll ever get to, if we get to anything at all. We couldn’t have spent more than two hours, total, within three weeks, tied up trying to talk to each other.” (154). This shows that she cares about her dad a lot but it seems like he doesn’t try very hard. All she wants is for him to try. Maybe if her dad were different she would be a better person now who didn’t go to drugs. Another quote is about how her dad isn’t the best example. “Dad crashed. Slept twelve hours, got up for a drink and a pee, slept six more.  Good thing it was his day off. But was it always his day off,”(70). This part shows the readers how her dad is a really bad influence. If he drinks all of the time, doesn’t have his priorities straight, what is he teaching his daughter? Maybe it’s better in a way she wasn’t around for most of her life. This is an issue in many people’s lives. People need stable parental guardians in their lives because this is another thing that relates to her resorting to drugs.

My last example of a social issue in this book that I am committed to is low self-esteem. As I read the story I quickly realized Kristina had very low self-esteem. The first time I noticed this was when she first met Adam. “Say something witty before he finds out what an incredible geek you are. That you’re too good for me,”(49). This is a defining moment in the book because Kristina really is a great person she just has a lot going on with her. A lot of people have bad opinions on themselves even when they shouldn’t. This leads to bad things such as drugs. So why does Kristina have such low self-esteem? I think it’s because of her father and because he left her and she never knew why. This caused her to do drugs to make herself feel better. This relates all of the three social issues.

I’ve only read a bit of “Crank,” but I can already tell the big issues in this book. I’ve read a lot of Ellen Hopkins and the reason she is one of my favorite authors is because she does a great job talking about social issues. You can tell she cares a lot about them and getting messages out to teen so they don’t face issues like drugs. I think it’s incredible how she relates social issues dealt by people she knows and people in the world to the characters in her book.