Crank Characters

From Holden Caulfield to Hazel Lancaster, literature is packed with troubled teenage characters. While we here at Shmoop don't mean to minimize the struggles of her fictional compatriots, few young...

You might consider Adam the one who starts it all—after all, it is meeting him on the steps of her dad's shady apartment complex that sets in motion the domino effect of Kristina's collapse into...

The hunky lifeguard Kristina/Bree hits on at her dad's company picnic might look like a pretty nice guy, but then again, there's always that old saying about not judging people by their appearances...

Chase Wagner might be notorious as Reno High's "storied bad boy" (As If That Weren't Enough.1), but like Brendan, his character reveals that there's often more to a person than what meets the eye....

He might only make an appearance at the very end of the book, but Kristina's son, Hunter, is still a big part of the aftermath of his mom's bad behavior. The child that results from her rape by Bre...

It's interesting that while he plays a pretty huge role in setting Kristina's conflict in motion, we never actually learn Kristina's dad's name. We're not totally sure why Ellen Hopkins chose to do...

Moms tend to be pretty complicated characters in books with young female protagonists. On one hand, the story's typically told from said female character's point of view, which usually casts them i...

Kristina's stepfather may be more reliable and generally a better parent than her biological father, but he has plenty of flaws of his own. Kristina first describes him as "stern and heavy-handed,...

There's no denying that Kristina and her big sister have always had a close relationship. As the other child from their mother's first marriage, Kristina has particularly attachment to Leigh becaus...

There's nothing like a jealous girlfriend to spice up an already hot summer romance. Kristina first makes Lince's acquaintance when she observes Adam and her making out from a distance—and at fir...

Cheerleaders may appear to be clean-cut Miss School Spirit carbon copies, but Kristina's friend Robyn delivers a huge blow to this stereotype and shows that even chipper cheerleaders have a dark si...

Let's be honest—we all have that friend. Yeah, you know which one we're talking about—the one who asks tons of questions without waiting for answers, somehow manages to be peppy and bubbly all...

Along with Sarah, Trent is Kristina's best friend from before Bree crashed into her life. One of the reasons she connects with him is because he's gay. According to the brief biography she gives wh...

Jake might be the typical annoying little brother that tends to show up in young adult novels, but in Kristina's case, he's a lot more than that. The child of Kristina's mom and her second husband,...

Riding in coach on a three hour airplane flight is bad enough, but having to sit next to one of those people who won't stop whining only makes it worse. This is precisely Kristina's experience as s...

Kristina and her family briefly go to visit her grandmother in San Francisco around Kristina's seventeenth birthday. Clearly, Grandma is in her final days—she has dementia and has mostly lost con...