Page-turners

Alexi McFarland acknowledges that she is no literary hound. She seldom reads books, certainly not 600-plus-page doorstops.

And poetry? No way.

"I'm a magazine person," McFarland, of Upper Darby, says between customers at the Hair Cuttery in Edgmont Township, where the 21-year-old stylist prefers People to Plath. "I need pictures."

That is, until a coworker introduced her to young-adult-fiction sensation Ellen Hopkins, whose stark novels, including Crank, Impulse, and this month's Fallout, delve into the deepest, darkest recesses of adolescence. In just days, McFarland raced through hundreds of pages - all in spare free verse, no less. She proclaimed the stories "awesome."

"She talks about subjects that are really big these days," she said, and that are especially relevant to people her age or younger.

Suicide. Incest. Prostitution. Bulimia. Rehab.

Some of the most popular reads with teens and young adults focus not on vampires and wizards but on the underbelly of real life. In the American Library Association's 2010 list of its Best Books for Young Adults, more than 25 of nearly 80 selections in fiction deal with the nasty side of adolescence.

Hopkins' novels didn't make that list, but six books after her 2004 debut, the 55-year-old has more than 2.5 million copies in print and consistently makes the New York Times best-seller list. Plus, her books twice have landed on the Young Adult Library Services Association's Top 10 lists chosen by teen readers.

But perhaps the most telling sign of Hopkins' heat is this: "I hear from librarians that my books are the most stolen out of libraries," said the journalist-turned-nonfiction-writer-turned-poet/novelist in a telephone interview from her home near Carson City, Nev.

Know of any other poets who are hijacked from the stacks?

It could be the subject matter, more down and dirty than de rigueur: Kristina Snow, a 16-year-old good girl, turns terribly bad when she succumbs to the pull of methamphetamines - a plot that parallels the struggles of Hopkins' own daughter, now 30 and a twice-convicted felon.

While the tales of woe undoubtedly resonate, many fans adore the verse format. As McFarland the hairstylist said: "That was the cool thing. The way she writes is different, instead of paragraph after paragraph."

Hopkins said she initially began Crank in prose. "The voice was wrong. It was too strong, too angry," she said. "I wanted to write from [my daughter's] point of view. Poetry is about how the poet views the world. This is how the characters are viewing the world."

The format, which uses plenty of white space and has poems within poems to provide an alternative point of view, makes for a story raw with emotion - and parallels the way many young people write in journals about their own turmoil.

Early in Crank, Hopkins introduces Kristina in a poem that begins:

So you want to know all

about me. Who

   What chance meeting of

brush and canvas painted

you see? What made

me despise the girl

enough to transform her,

turn her into a stranger,

(Notice the lines that together read: "I am./ the face/ in the mirror/ only not.")

"Homer, Chaucer, and Joyce wrote narrative verse," Hopkins reminds. "It's old. But this is a contemporary story. I like making every word count. That's the journalist in me."

Maddie Mowery, 21, has read Hopkins since high school and more recently got her fiance hooked on the audio version.

"I love that it's in poetry," said the Quarryville native, who is a senior at the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design in Lancaster. "It fits the emotion on the page."

She's such a fan that she drove six hours to Rochester, N.Y., for a book signing. And she agreed to marry her beau, Herbie Lammey, 26, only if Hopkins would attend the October 2011 wedding. Mowery, not originally keen on the idea of tying the knot, figured that would be an impossible requirement. But Lammey succeeded in winning Hopkins' and then Mowery's commitments.

While the books flow with the ease of a beach read, the covers are haunting: One-word titles are spelled out against dark backgrounds with what looks like lines of meth in several. The dichotomy reflects Hopkins' characters, seemingly nice suburban kids struggling with a world of ache and despair. For parents, the stories are eye-opening scary, not only because of the depths to which the teen characters tumble but also because of the ways well-intentioned adults are circumvented.

"It's so hard as a parent," said Hopkins, who is raising the oldest of her daughter's children. "You're automatically the enemy. Everything you do, there's resistance."

Realistic coming-of-age books have long been a staple of young adult nightstands - S.E. Hinton's Outsiders, one of the first, celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2007. But in recent years, the choices have exploded along with the trials facing fictional teenagers, whether about Columbine-style shoot-outs (Hate List), juvenile delinquency (We Were Here), or baby-dumping (After).

"When I was a teen, very few books were written for teens," said Kim Patton, president of the Young Adult Library Association. "Now, you have a broader market. You can match the perfect book to the perfect teen."

Librarians also rave about Hopkins' ability to hook reluctant readers.

She is "tremendously popular" with teens, especially those who seldom read thick tomes, "because her books are based on true stories," Patton said. "The stories are so good, they capture their interest. They'll sit and get through that book and ask for more."

It can't hurt that non-readers can rip through the pages of verse, often taking only a day or two to finish one of the 75,000-word novels. "Usually, when you give a teen a big, thick book, they shy away from it," Patton said. Hopkins' titles "go right to the heart of the story, and that's one reason more teens gravitate toward it." The librarian has noticed more YA authors, including Sonya Sones and David Levithan, writing verse novels.

Hopkins' latest offering, Fallout, completes the Kristina trilogy begun in Crank and continued in Glass by focusing on three of the character's five children as they struggle with adolescence and addiction. Hopkins recently signed a contract with Simon & Schuster for a series of books in verse about middle-aged women. Her early readers are growing up, after all.

On occasion, parents have criticized the explicit nature of Hopkins' novels - one of the risks of realistic fiction aimed at young readers. Last fall, an Oklahoma middle school canceled Hopkins' scheduled visit after a complaint.

Clinical psychologist Linda Knauss, however, welcomes books that explore real-life issues in sharp focus and said parents should, too.

"They are good and important things to talk about," even in middle school, said the Widener University associate professor. "People at that age are searching to find their identity, who they are. It's a special time of intensity of feelings."

Realistic fiction - both in themes and, in Hopkins' case, format - reflect those emotional highs and lows, she said. "A lot of adolescents express themselves in poetry," she said.

For Hopkins, the stories are about life and life choices, perfect conversation starters.

"Addiction touches everybody," she said. "I really feel the need to be totally honest. I want teens to see what it looks like. You can see how quickly it can happen and how far you can fall."