Crank

Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | YA | Published in 2004

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-40

Chapters 41-85

Chapters 86-135

Chapters 136-170

Chapters 171-223

Chapters 224-263

Chapters 264-295

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Background

Authorial Context: The Real-Life Roots of Crank

Author Ellen Hopkins writes in the Foreword to her novel that Crank is loosely based on her older daughter’s addiction to crystal meth. Like Kristina, Hopkins’s daughter was an honors student when she started using drugs. Hopkins began writing the book to make sense of her daughter’s addiction and to understand her own part in it. The specific decision to write the book in the voice of Kristina, rather than the voice of her mother, was an attempt to explore Kristina’s psyche. In a note on her website, Hopkins says, “By writing the story from ‘my daughter’s’ perspective, I learned a lot, both about her, and about myself. But I also learned a lot about the nature of addiction, and the physiology of this particular substance” (“Crank.” Ellen Hopkins).

Hopkins roots Kristina’s story in realism, showing how addiction can strike any family. One of the striking aspects of Crank is that its protagonist is from a relatively privileged, middle-class background. Kristina is bright and talented and has a strong support system in the form of her mother, stepfather, siblings, and friends. Despite all this, a series of circumstances and choices lead her to develop an addiction. Through Kristina’s story, Hopkins demolishes the myth that addiction only happens to “other” people. Hopkins realistically also shows that the story of addiction has no clean resolution in most cases. By the end of Crank, Kristina notes that addiction is not just a buzzword, but a condition with which she constantly lives. Fighting addiction is an everyday struggle. Some days she wins, and other days the addiction does. Hopkins’s personal experience informs this representation of drug addiction.

Critical Context: Book Reception

Though Crank is suggested reading in high schools across the US and the world, it has also faced controversy because of its frank depictions of drug abuse, sex, sexual violence, rape of a child, and strong language. According to the American Library Association, the novel was on America’s most challenged book list from 2010 to 2019. It landed on the list again as recently as 2022. In the same year, Crank was banned in the Alpine School District, Utah, under a new censorship law. The calls for censorship have been accompanied by a favorable critical response. Soon after its publication, Crank was nominated for the Quills Award (2005) and the Charlotte Award (2005). Reader responses to the book are varied and polarized. While some readers have interpreted the book as a cautionary anti-drug story that will deter teens from drug use, others have pointed out that the visceral descriptions of meth use may actually provide how-to guidance.

Recent reviewers and readers have critiqued Hopkins for appropriating her daughter’s story, rather than letting her tell her own story. Additionally, Hopkins’s decision to include details of her daughter’s rape has also been questioned. Readers also note the book’s early-2000s context, including problematic ideas about sexual purity and virginity. Despite all these criticisms, Crank remains popular and valid because it astutely unpacks the insidious workings of addiction. The text is especially praised for how it shows that the only certain way to avoid a meth addiction is to never use meth.

Socio-Cultural Context: Meth Epidemic

Hopkins notes that one of the chief reasons for the popularity of Crank is the timing of its publication. When the book was released in 2004, the ubiquity of meth addiction across America was just becoming known. In Crank, Hopkins shows how easy it is for a high schooler in a city like Reno, Nevada, to access meth. Cheerleaders are shown using meth to stay slim and energized. Drugs like ecstasy and meth are routinely passed around at parties, as in the case of Kristina’s 17th birthday bash. In real life too, meth use exponentially increased in the US from the late 1980s. Until the 1970s, most meth was illegally imported from countries in Southeast Asia, but by the 1980s meth began to be manufactured within the US. Large meth production facilities mushroomed in southern California and Mexico. The meth distribution network began to spread across the western and southwestern United States, with Nevada emerging as a key state in the network.

Government data show that until the 1970s, people who used meth were mostly white men, predominantly motorcyclists who carried the drug in their crank cases, hence the street name “crank.” By the early 2000s, the profile had expanded to include the general population, women, and adolescents. One reason meth became so widely available is that it is relatively easy to “cook” or create, even in small, home-run chemical labs. The plot of the critically acclaimed TV show Breaking Bad (2008-2013) revolves around one such home-run meth production facility. While Breaking Bad accurately depicts the realities of the meth trade, Crank shows the reality of a young person and their family dealing with meth addiction.

Ironically, like many other abused drugs, methamphetamine, or meth, was developed as a pharmaceutical. Formulated by Japanese chemists in the early decades of the 20th century, meth was initially used as a drug to help people lose weight, fight asthma, and improve energy levels. Meth use was widespread among soldiers during World War II to combat fatigue. By the 1960s, the medical establishment in many countries, including the US, had realized the highly addictive and harmful properties of meth. The drug was banned and went out of favor for a couple of decades but saw an underground resurgence in the 1980s. While in the immediate term, meth increases dopamine—a hormone in the body that uplifts the mood—the drug is very harmful even in the short term. Its greatest danger is that it is an extremely addictive substance that begins to alter brain chemistry within the first couple of uses. For some people, such as Kristina, one use is enough to spur the chain reaction of addiction. As the drug leaves one’s system, dopamine levels crash, inducing a crippling low. This is known as drug withdrawal and makes one crave more meth to restore the feeling of euphoria, creating a vicious cycle of addiction. Over time, meth use is associated with side effects such as impaired decision-making, memory loss, rotting teeth, skin sores, and harmful weight loss. Extreme side effects include permanent brain damage, nervous system disorders, and even death.