Crank Analysis

Don't think for a second that just because Reno is separated from Vegas by almost 450 miles, it doesn't have nightlife of its own. Like Las Vegas, Reno is famous for its casinos and entertainment,...

As readers, we have a pretty intimate relationship with our story's protagonist, Kristina Snow. She agrees from the beginning to tell us "the whole story" (Introduction.5) of her downward spiral, p...

If coming-of-age stories tend to focus on the transition from the teenage years to adulthood, Kristina's tale is sort of this genre on steroids. After all, you don't get much closer to merging into...

There's no getting around the fact that Crank isn't exactly a happy story. Where Kristina starts out with talent and promise as a student, she trades her entire identity in for a dance with the mon...

Rather than restrict self-expression with meter, rhyme, and all those boring structural boundaries, free verse poetry uses rhythm, internal rhyme, word choice, imagery, and other devices to create...

"Crank is more than a drug," Kristina tells us in the final stanzas of her story. "It's a way of life. You can turn your back. But you can never really walk away" (Happy Endings.5). It's appropriat...

At the end of Crank, Kristina stands on the front porch, listening to her baby cry inside the house and thinking about her struggles as a teenage parent and continued desire for crank. "Sometimes I...

If you skimmed through Crank and felt like all the white space is going to make reading this book a breeze, think again—the novel may be structured as a series of poems, but the format actually m...

"She's a Good Girl"Kristina Snow is the apple of her mother's eye, a gifted, talented honors student with a limitless future ahead of her. Still, Kristina can't help being dissatisfied with the pre...

In 2013, Ellen Hopkins adapted Crank for the stage. The show's world premiere fittingly took place in Reno in January 2014. (Source.) While hundreds of readers have written or approached Hopkins t...

For a young adult novel, Crank definitely pushes boundaries when it comes to sex. There's a lot of it in this book, and the majority of it isn't very nice. Kristina is accosted by a street gang in...

Guinevere of the King Arthur legends (Dad Hadn't Paid His Cable Bill.4; She Went Inside.1; I Wanted to Know Him, Too.3; Lince Floated.1; GUFN Again.5)The River Styx (Lince Floated.1)John Keats, "Gi...