Cracked - K.M. Walton

Ali Mark
Feb 10, 2016
3 min read

Published in January 2012.

Pages: 312.

Number of books by author: 6 novels.

Genre: YA Fiction.

When two boys, Victor and "Bull," have unflattering home lives, they both end up on the floor of the psych ward (whether necessary or not). Will they survive their 5-day stay?

You may like this book if you like the following sub-genres:

Depression/Mental Health
Family life
Friendship
Psych Ward/Mental Hospital

Goodreads users gave this book a 4.01 I think it was more deserving of a 2.78.

I was less than satisfied with this book. The story was fine, the writing was fine, the characters were fine. It was just kind of a snooze. I was always pushing to get to the end - whether to find out what happens, or whether it was simply to end it, because it wasn't out of a productive writing style intended to rush the reader.

For starters, if I'm going to read a book about teenagers in a mental hospital, I want it to bleed reality. Every single person in this book (from my memory) was in-and-out in five days. Five days is enough to stitch up your heart and head and ship you out, with no medication, no thorough treatment - just a few group sessions and one or two meetings with the psychologist, and then "see ya!" I think this bothered me the most. Mental health is already seen as something that can be fixed 'overnight,' and this book only perpetuated that. 5 days in any mental health facility might have changed you... but in this one? Not a chance in hell. Some of the patients don't even see the psychiatrist until their 3rd night or early on their 4th day (it was hard to tell); these group sessions - no one is made to talk.... that's not reality. Also, these kids just sit around eat, and play games? Are there only suicide attempts? No one has eating disorders? No one has anxiety disorders? Or bipolar? I mean, c'mon! What, 8 kids who all attempted suicide? Get over yourself, author lady. This is all a figment of your imagination. The believability in this story is just crap.

What I did love was that the two main characters were males. In this society, we see males with depression, males crying as a sign of weakness. But the author ensures that this is an acceptable sign of feeling throughout the novel, but mostly towards the middle/end. The rest of the characters were all the same "breakfast club" characters you expect. You have the bully, the nerd, the hot/popular girl, the fat kid, and the goth girl. It just felt kind of "meh," when it came to the imagination of the author in regards to the secondary characters.

As far as predictability, this book had it covered. Two characters who hate each other. They end up in the same mental hospital (and if you use your imagination, I bet you won't be surprised of further relations). They end up having parallel life-events. It's all just so unexciting when you're able to play it out before turning the next page. If A+B=C, A is Victor, and B is Bull, then C = this novel, if you can call it that.

I didn't hate this book. I don't want it to sound like I did, but there was nothing that made it good other than the character explorations. There wasn't anything exciting about the writing style, there was nothing spectacular about the story line (except maybe we have two kids from different worlds who experience the same things), there was nothing propelling me from page to page other than my own general curiosity.

(In light of my last review, I've decided I'm going to spend a little time on the book's title and cover/dust jacket art.) The title doesn't make sense. Cracked... I suppose that these kids have cracked under the pressure, but I mean, really? Cracked.... what about "Cracked" gives you the idea that shit gets better? Nothing. See also - two pills in a little medicine pouch of sorts (if you know what these are actually called seen on the cover above, please let me know... because I'm a loss) - these kids never discuss being medicated. I mean, sure, a few kids attempted suicide by way of pills, but what's with the two matching pills that no one seems to actually be taking as prescribed by this Dr. Eyebrow guy. The cover art and title were just horrid (and this was a hardcover... all we got was a white spine and blue cover... so nothing to discuss there).