Book Review: FALLOUT

It’s all about perspective.

It took me 12 days to finish all 1890 pages of this three book series.

It’s a ride – it’s meant to be.  Reading these books is supposed to feel a little like an addiction.  They draw you in, take you high, make you crash, and show you the bitter reality yet gleaming hope that can be left at the other end.

This book continues “Christina’s” story, but from the perspective of her children.  As the author says “I chose to pull out of Christina’s point of view, into her children’s to give them a voice, and to give a voice to my readers who struggle with their own parents’ addictions.  I also believe the ultimate hope of these stories lies here, with the generation that can choose to break this cycle.” “[Meth] doesn’t only destroy the addict.  It tries to destroy everyone who loves him or her. Parents. Children. Partners. Spouses.  Friends.”

This book does not show the typical teenager’s life.  (Although sadly it is becoming much more common)

 It shows the life of the children of addicts.  The broken, the beaten, the abandoned.  The totally screwed up families that form from a meth addict with 5 kids from all different fathers who end up in all different states, some in foster care, some with grandparents, aunts uncles.  It shows the stress on the biological families, the foster families, and everyone else who tries to help or make sense of the shattered remains.

I work in a State-funded, child and adolescent mental health clinic.  Half the kids I see are in foster care.  Over half have been abused or neglected - and mostly by drug addicted parents.  

This book is just like the first two.  It is not sugar-coated, nor is it hyped-up to scare you.  It is simply accurate.  

Chillingly accurate.

Book Review: GLASS

If ever a book nailed addiction – it’s this one.

This is the sequel to CRANK, and it’s spot on.  I speak to meth addicted kids every day.  Today I sat down with a 16 year old girl at a drug treatment center and she saw my book and asked me “Is that the sequel to Crank?”
I told her the basic gist of the book.  “It’s the natural progression of a meth addict in Reno.  From user to abuser,  to having sex while getting high to then giving sex to get high, then stealing to get more money to get high, then becoming a dealer, then a bigger dealer, then selling to prostitutes to try to avoid becoming a prostitute yourself.”

She looked at me and said very flatly and honestly “Wow, I’ve been every one of those.”

That is the story of GLASS.  It is the real story of our teenage girls who decide to try “the monster" - methamphetamine.

It shows the human side of them.  Just like CRANK, it shows that they are not all bad.  They have good intentions, they want to get clean.  They still care for people, they have standards, and they have ambitions…until they get high again, or start crashing again.  Then the standards fly out the window, the good intentions are abandoned, and all ambitions are replaced with only one – STAYING HIGH.

The book shows those lurkers, those who can tell which girls are runaways, which ones need a hit soon, and what they are willing to trade in their desperation in order to get it.  It shows how messed up and confusing relationships get when you mix, love, meth, trust, sex, need, lust, and desperation.

It also shows what all addicts know, but pray they’ll be the exception.  In the end – you get caught.  The truth becomes obvious.  It all hits the fan, and the whole web of lies breaks to pieces as your shattered life comes crashing down around you.

My only complaint against the book (other than being graphic and disturbing) is that it’s written like it’s poetry and printed on 600 pages.  The book reads like a novel written in paragraph form.  It could have been printed on 250 pages and it would read the exact same way.  The printing now seems to be a gimmick the author employs to make the book “different” than others.

It’s unnecessary and now it’s just getting in the way.

Book Review: CRANK

Two weeks ago I saw this book performed as a stage play: Flirting with the Monster

It is the story of a 15 year old honor student.  It tells in poetic verse how she goes from first time user, to addict, to dealer. 

I work at a residential treatment center for teenagers with serious problems: drug use, cutting, suicide attempts, repeated assaults, etc...

As I walked the hallways this last week I saw at least three different kids reading CRANK.  I talked with one girl about the book: She told me she loved it because she could totally relate to the main character.
We then spent a half hour talking about what parts she related too, how she knew she should stop using, but she could never forget how amazing the drugs felt.  We talked about her progression from snorting to smoking, but she had never done IV.

I found that knowing the story gave me a window into the lives of the kids I work with every day. 

Do I recommend the book?
 - not to everyone.

The book is... well... real.  Yes it is fiction, but it is the most accurate portrayal I've ever read.  I talk to drug addicted kids every day.  I hear their stories.  I hear about who ran away from home, who ended up in prostitution, who was raped, who stole from their parents, who started shoplifting, who got pregnant, who gave the baby up for adoption, who got an abortion.

I hear about who's "only" using pot.  I hear the other kids laugh because they used to be the same way.

This book reminds me of so many teenage girls I work with - it scares me.  Many of them are poetic, many of them are very artistic.  This book reads exactly the way they speak.  I can hear them saying the words.  I can see them writing it. 

That's what makes the book so amazingly accurate, and so terrifying at the same time.  It's just too real.
It doesn't try to scare you.  It shows you the good and the bad.  It doesn't make the main character into a raging monster - it makes her real.  It shows her good side and bad, how much she wants to be the honor student she was, and how hard she tries to turn her back on meth, but she knows she can never really walk away.

The book is based on the real life experiences of the author's daughter.  The emotions, the stories, the hate, the rage, the fear, the sorrow, are all very real.... and it scared me to death.

Sadly - I'm moving on to read the sequel.  This is the life of too many teenagers today - and they need our help.

Review: Flirting with the Monster

I have not been that uncomfortable during a stage production in my life.  Never has anything which was "acted" seemed so real.  It made my insides churn, my heart sink, and my head reel.

Hannah Davis IS a fifteen year old meth addict.  I know that her bio says she's the 20 year old actress, but that can't be true, because what I saw was real.

That's what made the play so disturbing.  I am a child psychiatrist just finishing my training. I spend my days interviewing kids in mental hospitals, drug rehab centers, and juvenile detentions.  I hear these stories all day, every day.  I see the families, feel their anguish, cry for their loses, cheer their progress, and pray for their future.

I hear speeches and lessons told to scare teenagers away from using drugs.  I hear shocking tales that are overblown and are made to make you cower in terror at the sound of "meth."  They don't work, at least not for long, because they don't ring true.  The shock stories don't leave an imprint on your heart, a circuit change in your brain.  They shock for a second and then they disappear.

That's what made seeing "Flirting with the Monster" so sad, so terrifying.  I knew the author and the actors weren't trying to shock me.  They weren't making up horror stories or trying to scare me away from meth.  They were showing reality.  They were showing exactly what really happens.  Nothing was overplayed, nothing was "dramatic."  I watched a fifteen year old honor student gradually become a meth addicted ghost, and it broke my heart.

The play is based on the book CRANK by Ellen Hopkins.  The book is fictional, but based on the experience of Hopkins' own daughter.

I don't know about recommending the show to others.  I really don't.
A fifteen year old girl from my church told me she has read the book and loved the play.  That terrified me.  This show is not entertainment.  It is not fun.  It is real.

If you want to know what meth does; how it affects a person, a family, a school - then see this show or read the book.
If you can avoid meth in your life and have no need for that knowledge - then keep your distance and more power to you.