Glass

Laura Flanagan portrays Kristina, a young woman living at home with her parents and caring for her 5-month-old son. Her voice exudes hope that she can continue to elude her propensity for crystal meth, which sidetracked her from high school graduation and contributed to her pregnancy. But slowly, as she grows more and more unhappy, "the monster" once again takes hold of her. Flanagan changes Kristina's hopeful voice to one imbued with desperation to score her next fix, the sheer exhaustion of coming down, and disregard for her responsibilities to her son and family. The only indications that GLASS unfolds in free verse are the occasional line break and the stressed title line of each poem. Listening to this cautionary tale is as addictive as its topic. M.M.O. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

August 13, 2007
Hopkins's hard-hitting free-verse novel, a sequel, picks up where Crank
left off. Kristina now lives in her mother's Reno home with her baby, but constantly dreams of “getting/ high. Strung. Getting/ out of this deep well/ of monotony I'm/ slowly drowning in.” When her former connection turns her on to “glass”: “Mexican meth, as/ good as it comes. maybe 90 percent pure,” Kristina quickly loses control again. She gets kicked out of her house after her baby gets hurt on her watch, starts dealing for the Mexican Mafia (“No problem. I'll play straight/ with them. Cash and carry”) and eventually even robs her mother's house with her equally addicted boyfriend. The author expertly relays both plot points and drug facts through verse, painting Kristina's self-narrated self-destruction through clean verses (“My face is hollow-/cheeked, spiced with sores”). She again experiments with form, sometimes writing two parallel poems that can be read together or separately (sometimes these experiments seem a bit cloying, as in “Santa Is Coming,” a concrete poem in the shape of a Christmas tree). But in the end, readers will be amazed at how quickly they work their way through this thick book—and by how much they learn about crystal meth and the toll it takes, both on addicts and their families. Ages 14-up.