Crank Blog Post #2

The novel Crank by Ellen Hopkins tells the story of a teenage girl, Kristina, who becomes addicted to crank, a form of methamphetamine. The novel follows Kristina's downward spiral as she attempts to feed her addiction and deal with the consequences of the bad decisions that she has made. It is during this time that Kristina gives birth to a new personality whom she will come to call Bree. Kristina describes Bree as the essence of herself. While Kristina is a traditional good girl and straight-A student, Bree is fearless. Bree flirts with boys, wants to experience the wild side of life, and takes drugs.

I decided to research the “success culture” that is present in today’s modern society. More specifically, I decided to research success culture in a high school and college settings. Success culture can be seen everywhere. But it is most notably present on college campuses, high schools, and varsity sport teams. The success culture can ultimately be defined as the mentally rigorous setting that many young adults have found themselves in, in which they are heavily competing with their peers to be the best. This culture is the breeding ground for a young adult’s strive for success. The feeling of always having to be the best compared to their young adult counterpart is detrimental to the young adult’s life. A lot of young adults are not okay with being in a constant battle with themselves and their peers. This vicious competition for success will leave many people behind. In this case, this will cause many young adults breaking under the pressure of having to be perfect.

In this novel, Kristina ultimately breaks under the pressure of having to maintain the good girl image at all times. Ultimately, it all became too much for her and she felt like she had to please too many people. She had to please her stepfather, fight for the attention of her absent father, and try to please her clueless mother. Kristina was tired of carrying the label “good girl” around. She is a straight A student and never causes any of her parents trouble. Her parents ultimately think of her as the “good child” and never expect any trouble out of her. This can be seen in the scene in the novel when Kristina is going through a relapse after being off of crank for a couple of days. Her stepfather correctly guesses that she must be using drugs while her mother is sure that she must have a cold because her “perfect” daughter would never do such a thing.

The effects that the need to succeed in order to be a part of the “success culture” can be seen throughout the novel. The stress and self- doubt that comes along with always having to be the best is detrimental to realistic life goals. The stress of having to be perfect ultimately leads to Kristina’s downward spiral of a life. The constant need to be successful is transparent all over our society. The need to succeed can and will leave many people behind.

(Rough Draft of Expos, Essay)