STOP PRETENDING : What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy

Sonya Sones
Harpercollins Juvenile Books
Young Adult
ISBN: 0064462188
149 pages

Read an Excerpt

It happens like that. Here one day, gone the next. In Sonya Sones's poignant first book, STOP PRETENDING, she relates the story of her older sister's nervous breakdown and what that breakdown did to her family. In a single night, her sister went from being her best friend and confidante to a complete and utter stranger. Unable to articulate their grief, confusion and loss, Sonya and her parents became strangers to one another. And though she would much rather have run away, Sonya chose instead to pour out her feelings in her journals. Told in a series of poems, STOP PRETENDING relates the horrors of her sister's stay in a psychiatric hospital, her own rejection at the hands of her friends, and her worries that she too might lose her mind. Time heals all things, however, and when her sister begins to recover, a sense of normalcy returns to her life. She makes new friends, develops a new hobby and even experiences her first love. Read individually, each poem seems ordinary enough, but when read all together --- their collective power is breathtaking. Many of the poems can be difficult to read, but the book ends on a high note, with all four family members playing a very irregular game of Scrabble. Similar to Karen Hesse's Newbery Award-winning OUT OF THE DUST in its use of blank verse, STOP PRETENDING speaks to the power of images and is a compelling and provocative memoir.

--- Reviewed by Tammy L. Currier

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