Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy

Bibliography

Sones, Sonya. 1999. STOP PRETENDING: WHAT HAPPENED WHEN MY BIG SISTER WHEN CRAZY. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. ISBN 0060283874.

Summary

Thirteen year-old Cookie's older sister has a mental breakdown, throwing her life into a tailspin as she must deal with life without her friend and confidante. In the end, she and her family find the middle ground where they can accept her sister's illness, move beyond it, and even find recovery.

Critical Analysis

Told in a series of brief free-verse poems, STOP PRETENDING: WHAT HAPPENED WHEN MY BIG SISTER WENT CRAZY packs a powerful punch of huge emotion. Each poem is another kick in the gut.

Adolescents will identify with the doubts and fears the protagonist faces. She misses her sister as she used to be. She's afraid of her friends' reactions if they find out about her sister. She fears that since her sister went from normal to crazy so unexpectedly, it could happen to her, too.

Through straightforward yet vivid language, Sones gets to the core of human experience, those moments so universal, we all have them, yet so private, we feel we are the only ones to experience it: "there's/ this golden moment/ when the sun/ licks through the gauze/ fluttering at my window/ warming my eyelids to opening/ this golden moment/ when I'm not yet awake enough/ to remember/ that there are things/ I would rather/ forget." Readers will say to themselves, "Yes! I know exactly what she means!"

The poetry itself is unintimidating and serves the story well. Sones effectively conveys abstract emotions through concrete imagery and easily understood figurative language ("I blink/ and there you suddenly are/ inhabiting your eyes again/ and I'm feeling all lit up/ like a jar filled/ with a thousand fireflies"), allowing insight into a very difficult topic without the deeply couched meaning that often keeps readers away from poetry.

Review Excerpts

School Library Journal--"An unpretentious, accessible book that could provide entry points for a discussion about mental illness - its stigma, its realities, and its effect on family members."

Kirkus--"Individually, the poems appear simple and unremarkable, snapshot portraits of two sisters, a family, unfaithful friends, and a sweet first love. Collected they take on life and movement, the individual frames of a movie that in the unspooling become animated..."

Booklist (starred review)-- "The poems - some as short as five lines, none longer than three pages - have a cumulative emotional power that creeps up on the reader..."

Connections

*This book is sure to open up discussion about various topics: mental illness, being shunned by friends, what it's like when parents fight, and sibling relationships, to name a few.*

Other verse novels by Sonya Sones:

WHAT MY MOTHER DOESN'T KNOW. ISBN 0689855532. Adolescent Sophie is not boy crazy, just confused, and trying to figure out the difference between love and lust.

ONE OF THOSE HIDEOUS BOOKS WHERE THE MOTHER DIES. ISBN 1416907882. Ruby's mother dies and she must move 3000 miles away from her friends and boyfriend to Los Angeles to live with her father, who divorced her mother before she was even born and whom she despises.

*Verse novels by other authors:

Carvell, Marlene. WHO WILL TELL MY BROTHER? ISBN 0786816570.

Creech, Sharon. LOVE THAT DOG. ISBN 0064409597.

Hesse, Karen. OUT OF THE DUST. ISBN 0590371258.

Johnson, Lindsay Lee. SOUL MOON SOUP. ISBN 1886910871.

Wolff, Virginia Euwer. MAKE LEMONADE and its sequel TRUE BELIEVER.