Crank and Glass by Ellen Hopkins
Kristina is a good girl who never causes her mother or stepfather worry. Other than the minor trauma of her older sister de-closeting a few years earlier, the family has never had any bumps in their middle-of-the-road existence.
Then, on a rare visit to her biological father, Kristina meets a boy. He introduces her to a whole new world, of parties, physical intimacy and, most damningly, methamphetamines.
These two books are my favourite find recently, and I’m keeping an eye out for Hopkins’ other work. Her trick of telling the story though poetry is not, as I first assumed it would be, grating, rather, to quote the student I just gave to book to, it cuts all of the extraneous bullshit out and just leaves the interesting parts.
Well written in a unique way, and powerful without being preachy, these ones are keepers. (Of course, I do need to give them back to the school library…)
