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.