Young adult readers often overlook poetry and view it as dated and monotonous. Ellen Hopkins is a contemporary novelist who has found a way to intrigue the minds of young adults using poetry in her numerous verse novels. Hopkins often uses intense themes such as drug addiction, mental illness, abuse, and prostitution to hold the attention of her readers. She is notorious for drawing inspiration from her own life and has perfected the ability to express the intense emotions felt by struggling adolescents. In her novels Crank and Identical, Hopkins explores the lives of teens dealing with addiction, suicide, abuse and mental illness, allowing adolescent readers to understand and emotionally connect to themselves and others. .
The novel Crank follows the story of how fictional character Kristina Snow, a "gifted high school junior, total dweeb, and perfect daughter"(Glass) transforms into Bree, her meth addicted alter ego. Throughout the piece Hopkins uses first person narrative to switch the point of view back and forth between Kristina and Bree. This allows the reader to join the metamorphosis occurring in Kristina's psyche. As the story progresses the reader begins to see Bree taking over as Kristina struggles to take back control. Hopkins commonly uses personification to demonstrate the immense power meth has over addicts. Throughout the novel both personas frequently refer to the drug as "the monster"(Crank). Along with personification, the poems often contain metaphors to develop reader empathy and use repetition to reiterate choice words. Hopkins connects the action of getting high to a roller coaster ride in Just Before The Drop. "Just before the drop you know how you stand and stand and stand in lineanticipation swelling, minute by minute by minute you start to climb Crank-crank-crank. Cresting to the top, time moves into overtime as you wait for that scant hesitation, just before you drop how you feel at that instantthat's exactly how it feels when you shake hands with the monster"(Crank).
