BOOK REVIEW: CAUTIONARY TALE CUTS DEEP

Glass

Author: Ellen Hopkins

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing: Aug. 21, 2007

Pages: 681

“Crank. Glass. Ice. Crystal. Whatever you call it, it’s all the same: a monster. And once it’s got a hold of you, this monster will never let go.”

Kristina Snow is a 17-year-old girl with a bright future. She has a loving family and good friends in Reno, Nevada, but a visit to her father in New Mexico changes her life forever.

Kristina’s initial encounter with the “monster” —meth — begins in Ellen Hopkins’ first novel, Crank. When Kristina goes to Albuquerque, she meets Adam, who introduces her to the monster. Kristina finds that she loses a lot of her inhibitions and concerns while under the influence, and her habit grows. This new free-wheeling personality becomes such a big part of Kristina’s life that she has her own name – Bree  (It’s not that Kristina develops a split personality -- Bree is simply the fun, outgoing side of the plain and timid Kristina.) Bree is reckless, though, and gets into loads of trouble. In the end, Kristina ends up raped and pregnant, left to face the challenges of being a teenage mother with a new addiction.

In Glass, Kristina returns home to Reno to take care of her new son while trying to keep her bad habit under control. Depressed at the extra pounds she put on during pregnancy, she takes up speed to lose the weight. She meets and falls in love with Trey, though he attends the University of Phoenix and can see her only during breaks. She fights loneliness and despair, fighting with her mother, who takes custody of baby Hunter, claiming to the courts that Kristina is an unfit mother. Kristina moves out of the house and in with Trey’s cousin Brad, who helps her find a job with his dealer. Trey quits school and comes back for her, and they rent an apartment. However, the couple is always short of cash. Increasingly desperate, they resort to dealing drugs, which puts them in an even worse situation.

Throughout the book, which is written mainly is verse, we see Kristina’s life go up and down, from loneliness to happiness, from loving Trey to loving other men. The format of the book clearly shows the drug’s effects not only on Kristina, but also on her once normal and happy family, which is slowly being torn apart. It conveys the confusion of Kristina’s life, sometimes appearing as a jumble of thoughts thrown onto the page.

While fiction, Hopkins notes that the book is based on fact. In a passage in Glass, she writes:  “This book continues the story begun in my first novel, Crank. Both books, while fiction, are loosely based on the very real story of my daughter’s walk with “the monster” drug, crystal meth. Our family is healing but will always wear the scars of the monster. I hope that by opening our windows and letting you peek inside, you will gain some insight to the nature of addiction.”

This is a heart-breaking story. It’s so easy to see the mistakes Kristina makes and how they have a  domino effect on her life, resulting in her losing everything without even realizing it. The reader often is in the same position as Kristina’s family, having to sit and watch her life deteriorate from one full of hope, to one without a job, money or self-respect. It now makes sense to me how addiction lasts a lifetime. People may go through rehab, but they are clearly never the same.

As a high school student, I see friends dabble with gateway drugs and fear that they could end up like Kristina. All teens need to read this book, and parents do, too. In school, we are taught that drugs are bad and make people do bad things. But such information does little good. Fiction, like Crank or Glass, can better convey the real dangers, not only to users but to the people around them. Friendships are lost, families divided.

This book has been banned from many school libraries for being “inappropriate” for teens. But what could be more appropriate than showing teens mistakes made by other teens? Drugs can seem innocuous when shared with friends, but there are unforeseen dangers (most of which are discussed in Hopkins’ books). Her work speaks to youth in a way nothing else has.