Verse Novel - Stop Pretending: What happened when my big sister went crazy

Bibliography
Sones, Sonya. 1999. STOP PRETENDING: WHAT HAPPENED WHEN MY BIG SISTER WENT CRAZY. New York: Scholastic Inc. ISBN 0439250706

Plot Summary
In this very personal verse novel, Sonya Sones writes about her feelings as a thirteen-year-old girl coping with her older sister's mental illness. Her series of poems come together to tell the story of how her sister's condition affects her and her family--she fears she will go crazy too, her former friends shun her, and her parent's marriage nearly falls apart. However, the story also has its pleasant surprises too--she discovers a love for photography, uses it as an outlet to heal herself and her sister, makes a new friend, meets a boy and falls in love.

Critical Analysis
The author's poems paint a very real picture of how mental illness affects not only the person afflicted but also family as well. The emotional power of the author's feelilngs can be felt in lines such as "I blink/and there you suddenly are/inhabiting your eyes again....and a trap door/ at the back of my skull/ swings open,/ letting the gloom/ swirl out." The poems are deeply felt and insightful for those who have never experienced such difficult issues. Together, the poems tell a story that is bleak but glimmers with hope at the end. It is a book that someone who has experienced deep sadness or difficult events can relate to and even be inspired by.

Review Exerpt(s)
Kirkus Reviews - "Collected, they [poems] take on life and movement, the individual frames of a movie that in the unspooling become animated, telling a compelling tale and presenting a painful passage through young adolescence."
BookList - "Based on Sones' own family experience, this debut novel shows the capacity of poetry to record the personal and translate it into the universal."

Connections
*This could be a great book to use when introducing or discussing the serious topic of mental illness.
*Other books about teens facing difficult issues:
Dessen, Sarah. THE TRUTH ABOUT FOREVER. ISBN 0670036390
Hesse, Karen. OUT OF THE DUST. ISBN
Wolff, Virginia Euwer. MAKE LEMONADE. ISBN 0805080708