Fallout (Crank Series #3)
  • Fallout (Crank Series #3)
  • Fallout (Crank Series #3)

Fallout (Crank Series #3)

4.5 574
by Ellen Hopkins
     
 

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This gripping conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Crank trilogy features a refreshed look and a trade paperback trim size.

Hunter, Autumn, and Summer—three of Kristina Snow’s five children—live in different homes, with different guardians and different last names. They share only a predisposition for addiction and a host

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Overview

This gripping conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Crank trilogy features a refreshed look and a trade paperback trim size.

Hunter, Autumn, and Summer—three of Kristina Snow’s five children—live in different homes, with different guardians and different last names. They share only a predisposition for addiction and a host of troubled feelings toward the mother who barely knows them, a mother who has been riding with the monster, crank, for twenty years.

Hunter is nineteen, angry, getting by in college with a job at a radio station, a girlfriend he loves in the only way he knows how, and the occasional party. He's struggling to understand why his mother left him, when he unexpectedly meets his rapist father, and things get even more complicated. Autumn lives with her single aunt and alcoholic grandfather. When her aunt gets married, and the only family she’s ever known crumbles, Autumn’s compulsive habits lead her to drink. And the consequences of her decisions suggest that there’s more of Kristina in her than she’d like to believe. Summer doesn’t know about Hunter, Autumn, or their two youngest brothers, Donald and David. To her, family is only abuse at the hands of her father’s girlfriends and a slew of foster parents. Doubt and loneliness overwhelm her, and she, too, teeters on the edge of her mother’s notorious legacy. As each searches for real love and true family, they find themselves pulled toward the one person who links them together—Kristina, Bree, mother, addict. But it is in each other, and in themselves, that they find the trust, the courage, the hope to break the cycle.

Told in three voices and punctuated by news articles chronicling the family’s story, FALLOUT is the stunning conclusion to the trilogy begun by CRANK and GLASS, and a testament to the harsh reality that addiction is never just one person’s problem.

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Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher
"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 narratives 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 reading 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." —Publishers Weekly

"Hopkins’ pithy poetry is the perfect vehicle to deliver the festering emotional beating that drug addiction inflicts on families. . . . Fallout is impossible to put down." - VOYA

Publishers Weekly
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. (Sept.)
VOYA - Barbara Johnston
Hopkins uses free form verse and alternates the stories of three of Kristina Snow's teen-age offspring to show the effects of her meth addiction on their lives. Adopted by Kristina's mother, Hunter Haskins lives in Reno and does not know his father. With his angry outbursts, heavy drinking, and cheating, Hunter imperils his serious relationship with girlfriend Nikki. Seventeen-year-old Autumn Shepherd doesn't remember her mother and, with her father, Trey, in prison, she lives in San Antonio with his sister. Autumn suffers from panic attacks and obsessive-compulsion disorder (OCD), and uses alcohol to ease her pain. Summer Kenwood, now fifteen, has been "drop kicked around" placement homes and endured sexual abuse. When her father, Ron, gets picked up for drunken driving, Summer lands in foster care again but runs away with sexy meth-using Kyle. Circumstances throw all three together at Christmas. They confront, not only their mother, but the jarring reality of the choices they are making. Containing f-bombs and some sexual description, Hopkins' pithy poetry is the perfect vehicle to deliver the festering emotional beating that drug addiction inflicts on families. The experience is painful enough suffered vicariously and might jostle readers into examining their own decisions about drugs and alcohol. Unfortunately, many will find themselves in similar circumstances through no fault of their own. In the "Author's Note," Hopkins offers them understanding and direction for "breaking the cycle." A quick read considering its page length, Fallout is impossible to put down. Last in the trilogy (Crank, Glass), it is also a powerful stand-alone. Reviewer: Barbara Johnston
Children's Literature - Janis Flint-Ferguson
This third novel in a trilogy about a meth-addicted mother and her offspring from five different fathers turns the reader's attention to her three eldest kids. Hunter Haskins grew up withmaternal grandparents and he has never met his father, an alcoholic. At nineteen he is a rising radio personality but with that comes groupies and parties. Exhibiting self-indulgent behavior, he smokes pot, drinks a lot, and cheats on his girlfriend. Savvy, streetwise Summer Kenwood spent her childhood bouncing around foster homes. She seems to have an attraction to "bad boys."Autumn Shepherd was raised, by her grandfather and single aunt. Her grandfather is seriously ill and Aunt Cora is getting married. Autumn knows about her mother's addiction, but is uses alcohol to cope with her situation. When she finds out that she has brothers and sisters, she takes off with her father to spend Christmas with a family she never knew she had. Language and situations are adult and graphic, but so is the power of hope that runs through their stories; and the message about the evils of meth comes through loud and clear. Readers root for Hunter, Summer, and Autumn as they struggle to conquer the addictive tendencies in their own lives. Hopkins delivers a well-crafted story in verse form for mature readers. Reviewer: Janis Flint-Ferguson
School Library Journal
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
Kirkus Reviews

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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Product Details

ISBN-13:
9781442471801
Publisher:
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Publication date:
08/06/2013
Series:
Crank Series, #3
Edition description:
Reissue
Pages:
663
Sales rank:
63,092
Product dimensions:
5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 2.00(d)
Age Range:
14 - 17 Years

Read an Excerpt

We Hear

That life was good

before she

met

the monster,

but those page flips

went down before

our collective

cognition. Kristina

wrote

that chapter of her

history before we

were even whispers

in her womb.

The monster shaped

our

lives, without our ever

touching it. Read on

if you dare. This

memoir

isn’t pretty.

© 2010 Ellen Hopkins

What People are saying about this

From the Publisher
"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 narratives 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 reading 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." —Publishers Weekly

"Hopkins’ pithy poetry is the perfect vehicle to deliver the festering emotional beating that drug addiction inflicts on families. . . . Fallout is impossible to put down." - VOYA

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