Do you ever feel you have everything under control when you really don’t? That’s Kristina Georgia Snow’s memo about meth, as her journey is followed through the Crank series. Crank is about a innocent, 17 year old girl named Kristina, who is on her way to graduating early when she has to go spend one month in the summer with her estranged father. While visiting her father, she falls in love and tries meth for the first time. The book follows her experience being addicted to the “monster” and the consequences that come with it such as hurting her friends and loved ones. The book ends with the teen becoming pregnant due to a product of rape. Glass, the second book in the series, starts off with Kristina, also known by her "alter ego" Bree, has the baby. She names her baby Hunter Seth. Kristina being clean during her pregnancy, quickly relapses and her life slowly starts to crumble around her. Ellen Hopkins own experience dealing with her daughter’s meth addiction influenced her theme of a life spiraling out of control shown through character, style and imagery in Glass.
On March 26, 1955 Ellen Hopkins was born in Long Beach, California. She was adopted by an older couple, her father Albert was 72 and her mother Valerie, was 42 at the time. Always wanting to meet her birth parents, Ellen found her birth mother Toni Chandler in the year 2000. She herself had been writing poetry her entire life. She also found out she has a half sister named Fran, and a birth father who she has yet to meet. Ellen had a cheerful childhood growing up in neighborhood full of famous people such as Elvis Presley, Bob Hope, Kirk Douglas and Arnold Palmer. She won almost every creative writing contest she entered at Santa Ynez Valley Union High School which ...
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..., you feel as if you are in Kristina’s shoes telling her story. Minimalist verses perfectly demonstrate Kristina’s dissociation and muddled despair. (Kirkus Reviews). The author really emphasizes meth as if it’s own character, giving it feelings and power. The emphasision of meth makes you believe that it’s the highly addictive “monster” that makes Kristina’s life spiral out of control and not her.
In Glass, Ellen Hopkins addresses the theme of someones life spiraling out of control through style, character, and imagery. Most critics believe the novel (and the entire Crank series), are Ellen’s best written books. She’s able to put her own real life experience on paper as if you are the one writing it. The book has easy to read poems and would be recommended to anyone 14 years or older. All of her books are a fun and easy read, while at the same time educational.
Kristina starts using drugs during a trip to visit her birth father in Albuquerque. Kristina is already feeling unaccepted by her family. She describes her mother as distant, her step-father as heavy-handed, her older sister as distracted, and younger brother as spoiled; however, thinking of her father, she is hopeful. She is deeply disappointed when she learns that her father is not the prince that she imagined him to be. Instead, he is distant
She dedicates this book to her “..family, and all the families whose lives have been touched by the monster.” Kristina talks about what a horrible person her mother is; a wannabe writer who never spends enough time with her daughter. A step dad who always has a stick up his butt. A brother who is spoiled and is too caught up in sports and video games to notice any change. Her sister is wonderful, but recently came out as a lesbian and caused distance between them so she moved away. Kristina was alone, until she met “the monster”. “The monster” is just a metaphor Ellen uses to describe the drug Methamphetamine, better known a Crystal Meth. Crystal meth can be eaten, snorted up the nose, or
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir told from the perspective of a young girl (the author) who goes through an extremely hard childhood. Jeannette writes about the foodless days and homeless nights, however Jeannette uses determination, positivity, sets goals, and saves money, because of this she overcame her struggles. One of the ways Jeannette survived her tough childhood was her ability to stay positive. Throughout The Glass Castle, Jeannette was put in deplorable houses, and at each one she tries to improve it. “A layer of yellow paint, I realized would completely transform, our dingy gray house,” (Walls 180).
This shows how far Alice was trying to go in order to get a hold of some drugs. She was so hooked on her drugs that she would do whatever it takes.... ... middle of paper ... ... It shows how far teenagers will go to get drugs, the consequences of drugs, and what life is like once you are hooked onto drugs. This is a book that many teenagers should read before getting involved in any type of substance.
Gwendolyn Brooks was born on June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas, to KeziahWims Brooks and David Anderson Brooks. Brooks’ family didn’t have much income. Her father David Brooks was a janitor. Keziah Brooks, Gwendolyn’s mother was a school teacher. Soon after Gwendolyn was born her family moved away from Kansas. The Brooks family relocated to Chicago, Illinois, where Brooks remained the rest of her life. Brooks, as a child, loved to read. She was encouraged by her family and friends to do so. She spent most of her childhood immersed in her writing. Gwendolyn became a published poet at an early age. At age 13, Brooks’ poem Eventide was published. Her poem appeared in “American Childhood.” Brooks’ poems were frequently published in the Chicago Defender. At age 16, Brooks had written over seventy poems (J.Williams 28).In Brooks’ early years of writing she spoke on a lot. She talked about racial discrimination and praised African American heroes. Also, Brooks satirized both blacks and whites (A.williams1). In 1993, Gwendolyn meet poet James Weldon Johnson and writer Langston Hughes. The two influenced Brooks’ writing tremendously. The influence lead her to write over seventy poems (Bloom 12).
Her grandmother would often compare her with her father. Her grandmother would torture her because she wanted revenge from her father. Her grandmother also blames her for the death of her mother. While Ellen was staying with her grandmother her father died. When her father died she didn't feel sad because she had always fantasized about killing her father.
The novel The Glass Castle, written by Jeannette Walls, brings to the surface many of the the struggles and darker aspects of American life through the perspective of a growing girl who is raised in a family with difficulties financially and otherwise. This book is written as a memoir. Jeannette begins as what she remembers as her first memory and fills in important details of her life up to around the present time. She tells stories about her family life that at times can seem to be exaggerated but seemed normal enough to her at the time. Her parents are portrayed to have raised Jeannette and her three siblings in an unconventional manner. She touches on aspects of poverty, family dynamics, alcoholism, mental illness, and sexual abuse from
It is commonly believed that the only way to overcome difficult situations is by taking initiative in making a positive change, although this is not always the case. The theme of the memoir the Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is that the changes made in children’s lives when living under desperate circumstances do not always yield positive results. In the book, Jeannette desperately tries to improve her life and her family’s life as a child, but she is unable to do so despite her best efforts. This theme is portrayed through three significant literary devices in the book: irony, symbolism and allusion.
Edna St. Vincent Millay grew up in a small town in Maine. She was always encouraged by her mother to pursue her writing and musical talents. She finished college and moved to New York City where she lived a fast-paced life pursuing acting and play writing. Her liveliness, independence, and sexuality inspired her writing styles and gave her poetry a freshness that no others had. She is famous for writing sonnets like “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why.”
According to Joseph Boyden, "They lived in the mud like rats and lived only to think of new ways to kill one another. No one is safe in such times, not even the Cree of Mushkegowuk. War touches everyone, and windigos spring from the earth"(49). For those who think that joining a war is an opportunity for adventure and excitement, they are wrong. In reality, it is the opposite with life and death on the line due to unnecessary slaughter between human beings because they cannot solve their own conflicts. This devastating topic is told by Joseph Boyden’s novel "Three Day Road" by two different protagonists sharing their own adventures and their conflicts. The protagonist Xavier and antagonist Elijah experience bloody warfare ability to cause havoc. They begin to understand that bloody warfare can make them physically and mentally draining over time because how it changes a person personality making them corrupt with intent to become a windigo themselves like Elijah did, striving to kill another human being as their only goal for survival. As humans, Joseph Boyden is reflecting that if the readers were Xavier or Elijah themselves place in that unstable environment filled with diseases and distraught. We would experience the same kind of suffering Elijah and Xavier had to go through.
One friend kills another. Speeches are presented. A war breaks out. This is the story of Julius Caesar, the emperor of Rome who was killed by Brutus and a group of conspirators. Many argue that Brutus was a patriot, and many argue that he was a betrayer. People argue that he was a betrayer because he betrayed Caesar’s trust and gave a speech against him. However, when you think of Caesar’s personality, arrogant and slightly reckless, he could’ve made bad decisions and caused Rome a great deal of trouble. Brutus was a patriot to Rome since he did what was best for the country and even took his own life instead of running away. He put his own feelings aside to do what was right.
The Great Gatsby is considered one of the best pieces of American Literature by many critics and authors. This is not because it was an interesting novel, it’s because it represented the time period well. It showed how there were many scandalous and immoral acts revolving around the major characters like Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom. These characters were shown having affairs, breaking the law multiple times, and being immoral. Colors in The Great Gatsby were extremely important because they show symbolism behind objects and characters. The color white represents impurity. Green symbolizes desirable but unattainable objects or people. Yellow is the color of death and corruption. These colors help show that impurity,wealth, and corruption can lead to the immorality of a person.
Even the easiest and trivial problems do have several solutions, dictated by different approaches, driving forces, and starting points. So, what can one tell about solution of the complex issues that require a lot of time, effort and thought to be solved? There are always a multitude of positions, opinions and options to solve the complex problem, so one cannot even tell which of these options is the only true and right. Thus, it is hard to judge whether specific solutions for the problem of slavery in North America of the 18th-19th century would be efficient or not. So, comparing Lucy Stanton’s and Nat Tuner’s positions and approaches to achieve the freedom for African-Americans it seems almost impossible to claim that only one of the points is valid.
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a harrowing and heartbreaking yet an inspiring memoir of a young girl named Jeannette who was deprived of her childhood by her dysfunctional and unorthodox parents, Rex and Rose Mary Walls. Forced to grow up, Walls stumbled upon coping with of her impractical “free-spirited” mother and her intellectual but alcoholic father, which became her asylum from the real world, spinning her uncontrollably. Walls uses pathos, imagery, and narrative coherence to illustrate that sometimes one needs to go through the hardships of life in order to find the determination to become a better individual.
“ I believed the people who romanticized those years, the ones who told me to embrace irresponsibility before I was slapped with the burdens of corporate adulthood” (23). Zailckas’ alcohol binging started at a very young age and followed her for nearly a decade. She turned to alcohol because of her peers who told her to live it up while she was still young and before she had to take on all these adult responsibilities. In the novel, “Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood,” Koren Zailckas opens up about what caused her alcohol addiction and how it left her with lifelong physical and emotional effects.