Fallout Review

Author: Ellen Hopkins
Release date: September 14, 2010
Pages: 662
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderberry
How I got it: For review from publisher
Other titles in series: Crank, Glass 

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.

Crank and Glass are two chilling novels about meth addiction, but because meth consumers every area of the main character's life, it's hard to get a connection to her that is anything more than pity. In Fallout, you get to connect to three characters whose lives have been completely affected by meth, which makes it the most chilling novel of the trilogy.

Hunter, Autumn, and Summer do some really stupid stuff, not gonna lie. But so many parts of their lives are so screwed up, it's hard to imagine they wouldn't do really stupid stuff. In their actions, you see the affect Kristina's bad teenage decisions have had for the past twenty years, and in that you realize that it could happen to you.

Hopkins' writing is, as always, wonderful, but I feel like it was a step up from Crank and Glass. Like she's evolved. I mean, look at these quotes:

"Always before, I just said no, left it solidly there. I waver now. I want to share everything with him. Want to know what he knows, feel what he feels, share the same space he's in."

“This is unstoppable, no holds barred. This is beautiful. Crazy. A beginning. Betrayal. Addictive. Aggressive. Alive. This is something to be afraid of.” 

Tell me that's not beautiful? I know for me, at least, it makes me more excited about wanting to give some of her non-Crank books a try.

So yeah, Fallout was definitely my favorite of the series. The different perspectives and the entire story-line was basically just made of win, and I can't wait to dig in to more of Ellen Hopkins' books.

Plot: Very good. Each of the character's separate stories had me fully absorbed.

Characters: I really liked them, in spite of some crappy decisions they made.

Writing: Really special.

Ending: All I could've asked for.

Kid friendly? There's drugs, sex, drinking, and swearing.

Overall:

I would glare at anyone that tried to keep me from reading this book.

I needed to know what happened to Kristina, Hunter, Autumn and Summer, and I could not be stopped.