The Glass Shatters.

Drug addiction changes your life and the lives of your loved ones, It is something that a lot of people struggle with. In Glass by Ellen Hopkins. The most important social issue is drug addiction .Kristina’s life changes and heads more downhill because of her addiction to crystal meth. Her relationships with her family and friends change especially with her baby hunter. Her addiction also changes her personality.

         

          Kristina’s Relationship with her family changes mostly in crank the first book of the crank series when she has to go visit her dad over the summer. This causes a drastic change because her dad was a drug addict and he gave her access to meth giving her the opportunity to get hooked on it. Also when she got back from her summer with her dad she was more distant  with her mom and her stepdad and siblings. In Glass however after she has a baby, she thinks that she is done with drugs but she gets pulled back into the addiction and her mom finds out so she gets kicked out of the house. When Kristina got kicked out she didn’t show the want to be living with her family again, which I find is strange because her mom wouldn’t allow her to take Hunter(her baby) because she knew that Kristina was unstable and would probably harm him. During Christmas her mom tried to reach out for her but she kept her distance for example:

“Tomorrow? Christmas. Presents and dinner with the family. And family. And Hunter. [He’s too little to care this year, anyway]”(pg 412)  This shows how out of the people in her family she mostly cares about hunter but not enough to sacrifice her conflicts with her parents to see her baby that she barely sees, before she got addicted it was weird for her not being there with hunter when she went to work, and Kristina acted like a mother and cared for her son.

         

            Kristinas personality changed because of the addiction to meth. Kristina has an alter ego and her name is bree, shes the more dangerous, daring, ruthless part of her and when she wants to refrain from meth bree pushes her toward it. In the book glass Bree kind of takes over Kristina and speaks for her. The scary thing is Kristina doesn’t have enough strength to not let bree take over her for example “ The small part, the kristina part, keeps whispering the other Bree part, is. ‘Not only were you stupid to sneak back to the monster,’  she mumbles, ‘but ten to one you’re going to get caught. Mom and Scott will know.’ The Bree part just stares contentedly at the ceiling, really comfortable for the first time in too many months. Meth. Tobacco.”(pg 111-112)  What Kristina is making clear is that her real self is the smallest part and she is worried about getting caught and she thinks that going back to the “monster” which is meth  is stupid, but Bree doesn’t really care about anything, but when she’s high Bree is the dominant voice that Kristina has so she doesn’t really care about getting caught all she wants to do is enjoy what’s going to end up ruining Kristinas life.

         

           I think Glass really represents the issue of drug addiction and how it can change a persons life because of Kristinas experience and struggles with meth. I think Ellen Hopkins wanted to really show her readers how dangerous drugs not only the known health affect it has but the affect on your family and the way you act. She really wants her readers to be aware of all of the struggles that somebody with a serious drug problem has to face. By choosing a character that faced it all. She wants us to know our Clear Glass life can be shattered by a serious drug addiction.