Glass by Ellen Hopkins

A new baby, a new life...back on the right track. But then he starts to call again. Not once, not twice- but constantly nagging, pressuring, tempting you to reunite with HIM. The monster is back.

Glass by Ellen Hopkins follows Kristina Georgia Snow, and her meth addicted counter personality Bree, through their rendezvous with the “monster”. After more than a year of being clean, and an infant son to care for, Kristina copes with her new found responsibilities.

In the sequel to Crank, Hopkins takes her readers through the dangerous and often fuzzy life of a crystal meth addict. Not long after her follow-up tale beings Bree takes over the life of Kristina and her life quickly spirals out of control. She soon ends up hanging out with her “old crowd” and even getting kicked out of her home and losing her son. Yet the meth is more important than any of that, more important than family, more important than love, even more important than the life of her infant son.

Kristina’s journey is unforgettable. There are a multitude of connections she is able to make with Hopkins audience from family life, boys, sex (including rape and sexual harassment), drugs, even desperately wanting to do what is right but somehow never being able to succeed. At times in the novel I felt furious at Kristina for what she was doing to her family, while at others she seemed almost pathetic and I wanted to reach out and help her.

I think this book would be a nice addition to a high school classroom. I would not suggest using this text in the classroom for junior high aged kids simply because the content may be a bit too strong. The form of the novel is writing in poetry which makes it very intriguing as well as a quick read. Glass could be used in a variety of subjects in everything from English to Health, the numerous issues it addresses makes it possible for the text to transcend many boundaries.