Fallout

August 16, 2010
The final installment of the trilogy that began with Crank and Glass examines the impact of Kristina's methamphetamine addiction on three of her children, now teens. Though not raised by their mother, they are still "dealing with the fallout of choices" she made, beginning in her own teenage years, as the narrative shifts among them. Hunter is quick to anger and experiments with substances, too; Autumn suffers from OCD and panic attacks because "things happened" when she was little; and Summer bounces around to different foster homes before running away with her boyfriend. Fans will recognize the author's trademark style: this is a gritty, gripping collection of free verse and concrete poems. Hopkins neatly creates news articles attributed to Associated Press, Variety, and other sources, clueing readers in to the fates of other characters from the first two books. In the end, readers will be drawn into the lives of each of these struggling teens as they deal with complicated home lives, first loves, and a mostly absent mother who "wants to love them," but is too damaged to do so. Ages 14–up.

August 1, 2010

Crank (2004) and Glass (2007) readers will relish this look at Kristina's three oldest children, now teenagers, all conceived in the chaos of crystal-meth addiction. Hunter, 19, lives with Kristina's parents, who adopted him years ago; Autumn, 17, lives with an aunt, ignorant of any extended family; Summer, 15, bounces between her father's trailer and unsafe foster homes. Their legacy is not only drug addiction but also the underlying malaise—half unhappiness, half boredom—that set up Kristina for addiction years ago. Parched for connection and excitement, these teens turn to love and sex, and sometimes booze and drugs, because their lives offer no other interests (though a convergence at their grandparents' house offers a faint whiff of hope). The clipped free verse sharply conveys fragmented and dissociated emotions. Autumn and Summer are completely believable characters, Hunter less so. This loosely reality-based conclusion (Hopkins's daughter is the real "Kristina," but her actual kids are much younger) will heartily satisfy series fans despite gratuitous emphasis on the bestseller-driven fame of the author's fictionalized alter ego. (author's note) (Fiction. YA)

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September 1, 2010

Gr 9 Up-Kristina, the meth-addicted antiheroine of Crank (2004) and Glass (2007), has five children by four different men. Fallout is about the lives of her three oldest children. Hunter lives with his grandmother in Nevada. He cheats on his girlfriend and smokes a lot of dope. Autumn lives with her sweet aunt and gruff granddad in Texas. She has OCD and knows little about her mother. Summer lives in a trailer in California with her father and a string of abusive/slutty/stupid girlfriends. She hates pretty much everyone. Hopkins's not-quite poetry is as solid as ever, though her use of visual formations gets more mystifying and extraneous with each novel. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that Glass is fresh in the minds of most readers. As such, the Venn diagram of Kristina's baby-daddies, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and drug buddies -is impossible to follow, and may frustrate even the most interested readers. So much deciphering cripples the pace of Fallout. The plot is choked with the perpetual damage of meth addiction-there's too much message and not enough action. Hopkins spreads the narration too thin between three unlikable narrators, and none is ever fully realized. The mood here is just as depressing and cautionary as Glass, and Hopkins's presentation is even more self-indulgent.-Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library

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