Glass is the second installment in Ellen Hopkin's series about Kristina Snow, teenage meth addict. The first book is Crank and I reviewed it here. The last book in the series is Fallout and is coming out next month!
Kristina is a former good girl who is now completely hooked on meth aka the monster. She's 18, has a baby, is supposed to be getting her GED and supposed to have kicked her meth habit. Buuuut. She doesn't. She hooks back up with her former friend Robyn and meets Trey. Who she immediately falls in 'love' with and starts back up her habit. She gets a job to support her habit and everything else just gets thrown to the side. She forgets about her kid, she parties all the time and it is extremely obvious to her parents who play the oblivious role really well.
Until, she falls asleep and Hunter (her son) injures himself. Then she gets kicked out. So she moves in with a dealer and gets herself into some very compromising positions.
It is really hard to read this because you just want to shake her and tell her that someone will love her and support her without her being on meth. That Kristina is worth loving and that she doesn't need Bree (her alter ego). However, Kristina doesn't believe that anyone can love her or she believes to readily that boys love her when all the want is sex. Also, the way she can just disregard her son is horrible.
This book is YA, but really I think it is a good book for parents/educators/adults to read as well. It's also a YA book, that is real and not all puppies and rainbows, which I also like. Hopkins is a phenomenal writer and I really like her style.
I am unsure if you are aware or not but there has been a lot of drama/controversy lately about Hopkins and her writing. She was invited to the Teen Lit Fest and then UNINVITED because ONE librarian and a couple parents didn't think her writing was suitable for kids to be reading. So she got UNINVITED. Which led to other people dropping out (YOU NEED TO READ THIS POST BY Melissa de la Cruz) and then the canceling of the whole festival. Pretty unreal and pretty sad for the kids who were affected by this. While, I think it is the festival's right to invite who they want, I find the reasons behind it crap.
I think the more controversial, the more it should be talked about. Sure you might not want your kids having sex and doing drugs, but whatever better REAL way than to expose them to the BAD THINGS that can happen when you do them through literature. TALK, COMMUNICATE. BE THERE. Let your kid explore and make their own decisions. If you deny something, odds are they will fin a way. Closeting your kid and making them parrot you is not letting them think for themselves and does them no good.
More posts on censorship:
Pete Hautman
Kami Garcia
Book Hooked
You really should check out some of these links.
What do you think about censorship? Will you let your kids read what they want? Do you think it was okay for Ellen to be UNINVITED?
3 comments:
Thanks so much for your thoughts, both on the book and on the teen literature festival debacle. Censors only win if we let them. Sometimes you have to raise a little hell.
I definitely think the festival was completely wrong to uninvite Ellen Hopkins. Librarians, teachers, etc shouldn't ever dictate what other people get to read. Being a librarian is about providing people with options, not providing them with limits. It really makes me sad that a librarian started this whole thing.
I do have to say that when I have kids I probably won't let them read anything they want until they are in their late teens. Those kind of decisions should only be made by parents though - and should be discussed with kids. It's never someone else's job to tell my children what they should or shouldn't read.
Great post - and how awesome that Ellen Hopkins commented! I'm fangirling for you!
Fantastic post!!! I desperately want to read these books now (since hearing about all of the controversy.) It's unfortunate what happened and I hate the idea of censorship.
Thanks for sharing on Kid Konnection.
Post a Comment