Blog 14

Blog 14

What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know
by
Sonia Sones

Plot Summary: Robin Murphy is one of the least popular kids at Cambridge High School. The other students pick on him relentlessly. In fact, his last name is one of the most common insults. You would think that everything would change for him when he starts dating Sophie, the most popular girl in school, but it doesn’t. The school, including her best friends, begins to shun her as well. An understanding art teacher, Schultz, signs Murphy up to audit an art class at Harvard University. He develops several real friendships and begins to gain some desperately needed confidence. During each class, he is required to draw nude portraits. Robin, not having much sexual experience, is very excited with each class. Robin can’t share with Sophie just how wonderful his art classes are. Sophie begins to spend more time with her friends as they start accepting Robin and Sophie’s relationship. Robin feels more alone with Sophie spending more time with her friends. In the very end of the book, Robin is tempted by Tessa (friend, fellow art class student, and sixteen year old Harvard student) who is willing to do more, sexually, than Sophie. The height of the conflict occurs when Sophie observes Robin kissing Tessa. All is resolved when Sophie forgives Robin after he makes a handmade Valentine’s gift.

My Impression: For a fast read this book felt long. The book is written in short spurts of verse, but these spurts seem to labor over the point. I felt that the point was made very clear very early. The author just seemed to go on and on about the various emotions of the characters. Long sections of the book felt redundant. There also wasn't enough plot to really hold my interest and not enough information for me to care about the characters. I'm not sure why this book would ever be popular.

Reviews:
WHAT MY GIRLFRIEND DOESN'T KNOWSonya Sones

In this sequel to WHAT MY MOTHER DOESN'T KNOW, we learn what happens next with Sophie and Robin --- but this time, it’s from the artistic outsider Robin Murphy’s point of view. Struggling to make sense of how he’s actually dating pretty, popular Sophie Stein, Robin learns that getting your heart’s desire isn’t always easy. Author Sonya Sones once again masterfully creates a book in verse that throws the reader into the depths of the character’s soul. With her amazing poetry, the voice of Robin is so strikingly real and full of self-doubt. “I told her I’d understand if it has to end. / And sure I’ll understand. / Because, I mean, what girl in her right mind / would want to be seen hanging with me? / With Murphy… / the ugliest guy at Cambridge High? / The guy whose last name people use as a diss. / As in: “You are a real Murphy.” But even though he is wracked with confusion, life is looking up for Robin. Not only is he dating gorgeous Sophie, but he also is selected by his art teacher to audit an art class at Harvard University. There, he finally feels like he belongs. Nobody knows him as “a Murphy,” the butt of all jokes. At Harvard he is the jokester, and better yet, he makes new friends, including a female student who develops a crush on him. Back in his real high school life, however, things with Sophie become tough. Her friends have ostracized her for dating Robin. Even though they love each other, it’s as if it’s Robin and Sophie against the world. Can Robin allow Sophie to sacrifice her social life just to date him? Like Sones’s previous books, WHAT MY GIRLFRIEND DOESN'T KNOW is a truly enjoyable and fast-paced read. Her story feels so rich and full of life, and it’s amazing what she can do with so few words. Robin is an authentic male teen voice whose struggle is often heartbreaking, realistic and funny. As a reader, I can’t wait to see what Sones writes next. --- Reviewed by Kristi Olson

Olson, Kristi. [Review of What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know] Retrieved from http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/0689876025.asp

What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know Book Review

Courtesy of Simon & Schuster
Author: Sonya SonesRobin Murphy isn’t the most popular kid at Cambridge High School. In fact, he’s so unpopular that the jocks use his last name as an insult—“You’re such a Murphy!” If Murphy were in the dictionary, the definition would read loser, loner, moron, geek or any other hurtful insult you can dream up.
Outlaws RuleYou’d think his circumstances would change now that he’s dating the beautiful, popular Sophie. Perhaps he’d get a little kudos from the jocks for landing such a catch, or raise a few notches on the popularity totem pole. But you’d be wrong. Instead, everyone at school thinks Sophie’s gone insane. Even her best friends refuse to be seen with her while she’s dating Robin. People at school try to sabotage their relationship. But Sophie stands her ground. She likes Robin and that’s all that matters. Robin can’t believe his luck.
In The Nude
Robin does have one thing going for him—he’s a very talented artist. His art teacher signs him up for a drawing class at Harvard University. There, he’s given the ultimate test of faith…twice. The students aren’t drawing bowls of fruit in that art class. No, sir! They’re drawing nude portraits…of real naked women! Robin can’t help but get excited. After all, when else can you stare at a woman’s breasts without being called a pervert? Art class is a dream come true!
Temptation
Drawing a naked woman turns out to be no big deal. But the second test of faith proves more challenging. He becomes friends with a few students in his art class. And one gets a little too friendly. She’s willing to do more than kiss, something that Sophie isn’t ready for. Robin loves his girlfriend. But can he resist the temptation?
The Bottom Line
What My Girlfriend Doesn’t Know follows fourteen year-old Robin as he chooses between loyalty and temptation. Written in a series of poems, the story feels raw and real. Readers will get an inside look at Robin’s conflicting emotions—his excitement and lust, along with his fear and guilt. This book isn’t a long read, but it’s definitely enjoyable.
What My GIrlfriend Doesn't Know Rating:

http://www.kidzworld.com/article/16294-what-my-girlfriend-doesnt-know-book-review

Suggestions for Library Use:
Beacuse the pages have shorts amount of writing some of this could be read out loud. However, I would only read this to teens and tweens. This book might be a good book to introduce to a poetry club or a club that encourages the writing of young patrons.

Crank
by
Ellen Hopkins

Plot Summary: Kristina Georgia Snow is the ideal daughter. Kristina is smart, good at school and pretty. Then Kristina goes to visit her father and Kristina turns into Bree. Kristina turns into Bree, because of a boy, Adam, who turns her on to the drug crank; crystal meth to the uninformed. Crank is refered to as the monster in the novel. At first the use of crank is a great deal of fun for Kristina. However, when Kristina returns home to her mother decides to continue to have fun with crank. Kristina meets two boys Brendan and Chase who have connections to crank. Kristina tells people that her name is Bree. Eventually Bree bonds with Chase over crank and the two of them fall in love. Bree's addiction to crank continues to grow as she meets others who also use. Robyn the sister of Trent (a former friend) shows Bree how to smoke crank. Although she is in a relationship with Chase, Bree begins an infatuation with Brendan. Brendan rapes Bree at a party. Bree reveals her name to be Kristina to Brendan as he takes her home. Brendan has nothing to do with Kristina for the rest of the novel. Kristina gets pregnant. Thinking that the baby is his Chase proposes. However, Kristina refuses his proposal because she finds out the baby is Brendans. Chases goes off to UCLA. Kristina decides to keep the baby and raise it with her parents.

My Impression: Crank does badly what Go Ask Alice did quite well years before. The message is still a good message even is the writing isn't. The book felt like and after school special. However, not having Kristina die at the end was a nice twist. Having the girl have to live with the consequences of her actions I think is a mor sobering end to the tale. It is eerie to me that 500 page books with less than a fifth of the page filled with text are being praised. We are supposed to congratulate children because they feel accomplished when they read 500 page novels in a day and half.

Reviews:
Crank by Ellen Hopkins: a Review
Published by Poetic Enigma, May 31, 2008
Warning: Don’t read this if you don’t want anything to be ruined, because it has some specific facts out of the book.
If you ever have taken a walk with the monster called Crank, you may relate to this novel written by Ellen Hopkins.
Hopkins’ books are real and raw and Crank does not fall short of that endeavor.
Her book shows the highs and the lows of trying the drug and becoming addicted.
In the novel, it all starts when the main character, Kristina Georgia Snow is sent to her fathers house in Albuquerque, far from her home in Reno and far different than what she imagined the trip to be.
There she meets Adam, A.K.A. Buddy. It is Buddy who introduces Kristina to the monster.
Kristina called herself Bree to the new people she met. Bree was her alter-ego. Someone who was outgoing and carefree while Kristina was held back and shy.
Bree (and Kristina perhaps) fell in love with Buddy (or was it Adam?) but eventually Kristina had to go back home to Reno. They wrote letters back and forth after she returned home, but their love did not last.
At this point she was addicted to the monster and needed to get her hands on it. Anyway she could. In trying to find the monster she wound up dating two guys. Chase and Brendon.
Chase ended up leaving for college sometime after they fell in love and Brendon raped her. At the end of the book she learned that she was going to have a baby.
Guess whose it was?
I will leave that one as a surprise for those who have not read the book yet.
The ending of this book is not as tragic as the others Ellen Hopkins has written, however there is a sequel to Crank called Glass.
I think her book Crank is just amazing, and so full of truth.
What do you think?

http://bookstove.com/drama/crank-by-ellen-hopkins-a-review/


Book Review: Crank-- Story About a Monster
By Patricia Irizarry
Crank is more than a drug. It`s a way of life. You can turn your back. But you can never really walk away. "
Those were the words spoken from 17-year-old Kristina Georgia Snow, the young meth addict in Ellen Hopkins`s book, Crank. " While this story is fictitious, it is based on true events "the events that happened to Hopkins`s daughter. Crank " is about Kristina going through a complete turn-around in her life, going from a well-behaved straight-A student living in Reno to being succumbed to using meth, also known as the monster. "
Kristina`s first encounter with the monster " was through a boy she met and fell in love with while visiting her drug-addicted father in Albuquerque one summer. However, no one in Albuquerque knew her as Kristina. Everyone knew her as Bree, the girl who would take over Kristina`s mind and eventually her life.
In the author`s note, Hopkins writes according to her daughter`s past, The monster did touch her life and the lives of her family. My family. It is hard to watch someone you love fall so deeply under the spell of a substance that turns him or her into a stranger. Someone you don`t even want to know. "
Kristina, or Bree, was exactly that "a stranger. Hopkins`s Crank " shows how this young teenager would turn her back on everyone that loved and cared about her so much, all because she wanted to get high; to escape the norm that was her life in Reno, Nevada. Kristina ended up having two boyfriends "both using crank as well "getting poor grades in school, losing her best friends and betraying her parents` trust. The monster had changed her dramatically and she found out at a youthful age that things would never be the same.
Hopkins`s use of free verse brings out the descriptive narration in Crank. " The entire book is written beautifully, yet tragically, to paint a picture of Kristina`s ride with the monster. " Hopkins writes, Nothing in this story is impossible. Much of it happened to us, or to families like ours. Many of the characters are composites of real people. If they ring true, they should. "
Crank " has definitely touched my heart and has made me aware of what happens when one dances with the monster. " Hopkins has accomplished what she sought out to do "having this story speak to people. Crank " could be used as a guide for many people of all ages, male or female, to be more aware of the dangers of meth and all drugs that are out in this world.
As she concludes her author`s note, Hopkins said, Crank is indeed a monster "one that is tough to leave behind once you invite it into your life. Think twice. Then think again. "
Comment on this story, by emailing Judyth Piazza at comment@thesop.org or join the SOP friend network with your Google, Yahoo, AOL, MSN or one ID account located on the front page of http://www.thesop.org.

Irizarry, Patricia [Review of Crank] Retrieved from http://thesop.org/art/2007/06/04/book-review-crank-story-about-a-monster

Suggestions for Library Use: I would suggest this book to teen users who I suspect might have be having a troubled home life or a drug problem. however, I would try to be as discreet as humaly possible. This book would also be a good book for a teen poetry appreciation club.