Title: Fallout
Author: Ellen Hopkins
Genre: YA Fiction
How I got the book: I bought it
Summary (from Amazon):
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.
My Review:
This is the conclusion to the Crank trilogy and what an amazing conclusion it is.
In Fallout, we follow three different points of view: Hunter, Autumn, and Summer. Three of Kristina’s five children. They’re all teenagers, Hunter being the oldest at the age of 19.
Each one of them tell their own story about how they barely knew their mother or father, wondered why they didn’t deserve to be part of a real family, why did the monster have to tear them apart, of all people?
Hunter lives with Kristina’s parents, Autumn lived with her father’s father and aunt, and Summer was thrown into multiple foster homes.
They all come across their own ups and downs in life when it comes to alcohol, drugs, and sex. Yet, for the most part, none of the kids go down the same path as their mother.
Each voice was unique and deeply interesting as each character went through their own problems. The writing is as beautiful as ever told in prose and path text.
I have to admit that I really felt bad for Kristina throughout the novel. Yet, I feel bad for her children even more.
This book is powerful and intense at times, but it’s definitely an informative read, one that I think everyone should give a chance.
Fallout by Ellen Hopkins gets 5 out of 5 stars.
Favorite Quote:
“Anger is a valid emotion. It’s only bad when it takes control and makes you do things you don’t want to do.” –Ellen Hopkins, Fallout
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