More Than Just a Broken Line by Susan Hart Lindquist Summary and Analysis

To become a bestseller and stay in print, a book has to connect with readers. For a writer, there is a tension between his or her creative vision and what it takes to get a book published. Does a writer compromise creativity in order to get a book published? Ellen Hopkins chose to follow her creative instincts and wrote "Crank" in verse - a genre that was at times, challenging and in a format that was unusual and unexpected. Yet, it became a bestseller just like her sequel, "Glass." Kids are not only reading Hopkins' books of verse, they are memorizing the lines and quoting from it.

The book is popular, despite its unusual format, because the writing is good. Hopkins wrote the...