Read, Run, Ramble

This was my first read by Ellen Hopkins and I'm a fan! My local library partnered with a local indie, Rainy Day Books to offer a copy of her newest novel Perfect so I signed up and in the meantime decided to give her first novel, Crank a try. I was skeptical due to the format - it is written in verse. I thought it would feel choppy or incomplete somehow - I was totally wrong.In this story, loosely based on the author's own daughter, the good girl (Kristina) goes bad. The story is gripping from the start and haunting through the end. The verse adds to the realism and readers will be immersed into Kristina's world - the pressures, the fears, the frustrations along with the consequences as she chooses each individual path and makes decisions.As a parent and a person who remembers the toughest parts of my teen years, I connected with both mom and daughter and my heart was sucked right into the storyline and settled in with the characters as I got to know them, cheered for them, cried for them, and desperately hoped for a good ending for them.I can't wait to read the subsequent books to find where Kristina and her family land.