Genre 3--Book Review 3

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sones, Sonya. 1999. STOP PRETENDING: WHAT HAPPENED WHEN MY BIG SISTER WENT CRAZY. New York: Harper Collins.
ISBN: 0-06-028387-4

PLOT SUMMARY
Written as a series of short poems, Sonya Sones’s novel, STOP PRETENDING: WHAT HAPPENED WHEN MY BIG SISTER WENT CRAZY, describes the thoughts, emotions, and conflicts of a young girl as she struggles with her sister’s mental illness. Told in first person by the thirteen-year-old Cookie, the free-verse novel, begins with a poem titled, “My Whole Family,” “I can/remember what / things were like before she / got sick; my whole family climbed / into / the big / hammock on the / moondappled beach, wove / ourselves together, and swayed / as one.” The “whole family” is fragmented by the heart-wrenching breakdown of Cookie’s older sister and her subsequent hospitalization.

Throughout the novel, Cookie navigates conflicting emotions, the reactions of her peers, and her parents’ struggling relationship. As the days and weeks progress the everyday events in life altered beyond any normalcy. In the midst of it all, Cookie finds love with an earnest boy and discovers herself in the art of photography.

As Sister begin to emerge from the depths of her illness, a glimmer of hope and reconciliation emerges in the form of humor as the family plays Scrabble in the visiting room. At the end, the letters come together to make things “BETTER.”

In an author’s note at the end of the book, Sones reveals that the poems were inspired by events that took place in her own life and the journals that she kept during that time.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
STOP PRETENDING: WHAT HAPPENED WHEN BY BIG SISTER WENT CRAZY, a novel-in-verse by Sonya Sones, has received more than a dozen awards and honors including the Claudia Lewis award for poetry. The debut novel captures an autobiographical episode in the author’s life.

The verse-in-novel form allows the writer to connect closely with the emotion of the narrator. The poetry possesses a compression in language that allows a story to be told at its barest level and, at times, it seems raw. Sones successfully taps into the elements of poetry that allow her to capture an almost visceral reaction. Most readers can complete the novel in one sitting, and probably do. The story has an immediacy that urges the reader forward, becoming fully absorbed.

Individually the poems the poems cannot stand alone; they find strength in context. The book is intended for young adult readers and the subject matter may be too mature for middle school.

REVIEW EXCERPTS
Review from KIRKUS REVIEWS, October 1, 1999
… a compelling tale and presenting a painful passage through young adolescence.

Review from SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, October 1, 1999
An unpretentious, accessible book that could provide entry points for a discussion about mental illness-its stigma, its realities, and its affect on family members.-Sharon Korbeck

Review from BOOKLIST, November 15, 1999
… this debut novel shows the capacity of poetry to record the personal and translate it into the universal.
-Michael Cart

CONNECTIONS
The author’s website discusses the novel and gives several links (the book does as well) to mental health sites.
http://www.sonyasones.com/

The cover of the first edition shows a self-portrait of the author’s sister. The photograph is taken in a mirror and is out-of-focus. Have students take their own self-portraits, one where they are not immediately recognizable.

Play Scrabble with invented words like the characters do in the last poem in the book.

Have a mental health professional talk with students.

Read other books about characters with mental health issues like CUT by Patricia McCormick andSPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson.