Fallout

by Ellen Hopkins Narrated by Candace Thaxton, Rebekkah Ross, Jonathan Todd Ross, Kirby Heyborne

Overview

This gripping conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Crank trilogy features a refreshed look and a trade paperback trim size.

Hunter, Autumn, and Summer-three of Kristina Snow's five children-live in different homes, with different guardians and different last names. They share only a predisposition for addiction and a host of troubled feelings toward the mother who barely knows them, a mother who has been riding with the monster, crank, for twenty years.

Hunter is nineteen, angry, getting by in college with a job at a radio station, a girlfriend he loves in the only way he knows how, and the occasional party. He's struggling to understand why his mother left him, when he unexpectedly meets his rapist father, and things get even more complicated. Autumn lives with her single aunt and alcoholic grandfather. When her aunt gets married, and the only family she's ever known crumbles, Autumn's compulsive habits lead her to drink. And the consequences of her decisions suggest that there's more of Kristina in her than she'd like to believe. Summer doesn't know about Hunter, Autumn, or their two youngest brothers, Donald and David. To her, family is only abuse at the hands of her father's girlfriends and a slew of foster parents. Doubt and loneliness overwhelm her, and she, too, teeters on the edge of her mother's notorious legacy. As each searches for real love and true family, they find themselves pulled toward the one person who links them together-Kristina, Bree, mother, addict. But it is in each other, and in themselves, that they find the trust, the courage, the hope to break the cycle.

Told in three voices and punctuated by news articles chronicling the family's story, FALLOUT is the stunning conclusion to the trilogy begun by CRANK and GLASS, and a testament to the harsh reality that addiction is never just one person's problem.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

The final installment of the trilogy that began with Crank and Glass examines the impact of Kristina's methamphetamine addiction on three of her children, now teens. Though not raised by their mother, they are still "dealing with the fallout of choices" she made, beginning in her own teenage years, as the narrative shifts among them. Hunter is quick to anger and experiments with substances, too; Autumn suffers from OCD and panic attacks because "things happened" when she was little; and Summer bounces around to different foster homes before running away with her boyfriend. Fans will recognize the author's trademark style: this is a gritty, gripping collection of free verse and concrete poems. Hopkins neatly creates news articles attributed to Associated Press, Variety, and other sources, clueing readers in to the fates of other characters from the first two books. In the end, readers will be drawn into the lives of each of these struggling teens as they deal with complicated home lives, first loves, and a mostly absent mother who "wants to love them," but is too damaged to do so. Ages 14–up. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

"The final installment of the trilogy that began with CRANK and GLASS examines the impact of Kristina's methamphetamine addiction on three of her children, now teens. Though not raised by their mother, they are still 'dealing with the fallout of choices' she made, beginning in her own teenage years, as the narratives shifts among them. Hunter is quick to anger and experiments with substances, too; Autumn suffers from OCD and panic attacks because 'things happened' when she was little; and Summer bounces around to different foster homes before running away with her boyfriend. Fans will recognize the author's trademark style: this is a gritty, gripping collection of free verse and concrete poems. Hopkins neatly creates news articles attributed to Associated Press, Variety, and other sources, clueing reading in to the fates of other characters from the first two books. In the end, readers will be drawn into the lives of each of these struggling teens as they deal with complicated home lives, first loves, and a mostly absent mother who 'wants to love them' but is too damaged to do so." —Publishers Weekly

"Hopkins’ pithy poetry is the perfect vehicle to deliver the festering emotional beating that drug addiction inflicts on families. . . . Fallout is impossible to put down." - VOYA

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up—Kristina, the meth-addicted antiheroine of Crank (2004) and Glass (2007), has five children by four different men. Fallout is about the lives of her three oldest children. Hunter lives with his grandmother in Nevada. He cheats on his girlfriend and smokes a lot of dope. Autumn lives with her sweet aunt and gruff granddad in Texas. She has OCD and knows little about her mother. Summer lives in a trailer in California with her father and a string of abusive/slutty/stupid girlfriends. She hates pretty much everyone. Hopkins's not-quite poetry is as solid as ever, though her use of visual formations gets more mystifying and extraneous with each novel. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that Glass is fresh in the minds of most readers. As such, the Venn diagram of Kristina's baby-daddies, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and drug buddies -is impossible to follow, and may frustrate even the most interested readers. So much deciphering cripples the pace of Fallout. The plot is choked with the perpetual damage of meth addiction—there's too much message and not enough action. Hopkins spreads the narration too thin between three unlikable narrators, and none is ever fully realized. The mood here is just as depressing and cautionary as Glass, and Hopkins's presentation is even more self-indulgent.—Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170146499
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	02/02/2016
Series:	Crank , #3
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	928,071

Read an Excerpt

We Hear

That life was good

before she

met

the monster,

but those page flips

went down before

our collective

cognition. Kristina

wrote

that chapter of her

history before we

were even whispers

in her womb.

The monster shaped

our

lives, without our ever

touching it. Read on

if you dare. This

memoir

isn’t pretty.

© 2010 Ellen Hopkins

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