Fallout by Ellen Hopkins

Fallout by Ellen Hopkins
"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."- summary from Amazon

The conclusion to the Crank trilogy is here and I was so excited to read it. As with all Ellen Hopkins' novel, it was amazing and heart-breaking to read. I enjoyed the three perspectives of Kristina's three teen and college-age children, scattered over the U.S. Hopkins did a great job of nailing each voice and I enjoyed reading from each kid's perspective.

I had a bit of trouble trying to remember everything since it's been so long since I read the previous two books. Hopkins does the best she can to refresh readers on the story, but it's a lot to fit in so some stuff is left out or explained way later. I'd definitely suggest re-reading Crank and Glass before this to really refresh your memory and prepare for this book.

I thought it was clever to move to the future and see how Kristina's habits affected her children and their lives. It's also interesting to see Kristina from a different perspective because you're in her head for the first two books. It's so sad to see her now in this novel and to see her interactions with her kids.

I don't really know what else to say about this book other than it's a fitting ending for this trilogy. Hopkins' verse is still just as amazing and even though the story is not, her words are a joy to read. Definitely pick up this series- it's simply amazing.

Also, in the beginning of the novel, there's an article from the Reno, NV paper about Marie Haskins' (mother of Kristina i.e. Ellen essentially) 15th novel, Submission, which is about vampires. I really think that Ellen needs to write that as her 15th novel. I think that would be awesome. Look for it in like 5 years, lol.

FTC: Received ARC at ALA (signed!). Link above is an Amazon Associate link; any profit goes toward funding contests.