Stop Pretending

by Sonya Sones

It happened to Sonya Sones. Her brilliant sequence of poems describes the night her 19-year-old sister suddenly turns into a screaming stranger and is taken away to a psychiatric hospital. She portrays a loving family torn apart by grief; the ordeal of hospital visits; the anxiety of a 13-year-old that her friends will reject her if they find out, or that this could happen to her too; and finally her acceptance that her life has been forever changed. This is a stunning book in the tradition of THE BELL JAR. It is the first by Sonya Sones, whose poems evoke an ordinary teenager's shattered world with powerful intensity. Deeply human and affecting, and very readable, this is an inspirational book that has already won many awards and accolades in the US, and speaks to adults just as much as teenagers. American 'A tour de force. Sones never wavers … in the authenticity of her voice' Boston Globe 'This novel in verse shows the capacity of poetry to record the personal and translate it into the universal … there are wonderful surprises' Booklist 'The form, a story-in-poems, fits the story remarkably well, spotlighting the musings of the 13-year-old narrator, and pinpointing the emotions powerfully … To a budding genre … this book is a welcome addition' Kirkus Review

160 pages, Paperback

Published June 21, 2001

About the author

SONYA SONES has written seven young adult novels in verse: Stop Pretending, What My Mother Doesn’t Know, What My Girlfriend Doesn’t Know, One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies, To Be Perfectly Honest, Saving Red, and The Opposite of Innocent.

Her books have received many awards, including a Christopher Award, the Myra Cohn Livingston Award for Poetry, the Claudia Lewis Poetry Award, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize nomination and a Cuffie Award from Publisher’s Weekly for Best Book Title of the year. But the coolest honor she ever received was when her novel, What My Mother Doesn’t Know, landed her a spot on the American Library Association’s list of the Most Frequently Banned Authors of the 21st Century. (To find out why, see page 46.)

Sonya has also written a novel in verse for grownups—the Los Angeles Times bestseller The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus, a coming of middle-age story about learning to grow old disgracefully, which was optioned by Michelle Pfeiffer, and has contributed poems and short stories in verse to lots of anthologies.

Her books have been recognized by the American Library Association as Best Books for Young Adults and Quick Picks For Reluctant Young Readers, and have received a dozen state awards for Best Young Adult Book of the Year.

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sonya sones always has my heart. This book, even though it was short, has a special meaning behind it. Even reading the end of it where she says that this was based off of her sister actually being in a manic depressive state and having to go to the hospital made it even that more compelling. It was so vulnerable and real!