It happens just like that, in the blink of an eye. An older sister has a mental breakdown and has to be hospitalized. A younger sister is left behind to cope with a family torn apart by grief and friends who turn their backs on her. But worst of all is the loss of her big sister, her confidante, her best friend, who has gone someplace no one can reach.

In the tradition of The Bell Jar, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, and Lisa, Bright and Dark comes this haunting first book told in poems, and based on the true story of the author's life.

2000 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA) and 2000 Quick Picks for Young Adults (Recomm. Books for Reluctant Young Readers)

ANNOTATION

A younger sister has a difficult time adjusting to life after her older sister has a mental breakdown.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

It happens just like that, in the blink of an eye. An older sister has a mental breakdown and has to be hospitalized. A younger sister is left behind to cope with a family torn apart by grief and friends who turn their backs on her. But worst of all is the loss of her big sister, her confidante, her best friend, who has gone someplace no one can reach.

In the tradition of The Bell Jar, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, and Lisa, Bright and Dark comes this haunting first book told in poems, and based on the true story of the author's life.

2000 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA) and 2000 Quick Picks for Young Adults (Recomm. Books for Reluctant Young Readers)

About the Author

As a teenager Sonya Sones spent hours pouring her private thoughts and feelings into journals. Her passion for writing, drawing, and photography led her to begin making animated films when she was seventeen. She studied filmmaking in college, and went on to teach animation, make films for public television, and edit movies in Hollywood. She lives with her husband and two children near the beach in California. Stop Pretending is her first book.

FROM THE CRITICS

Children's Literature - Judy Silverman

This is one of the most beautiful and most disturbing books aimed at young people that I have ever read. Beautiful not just in its use of free verse, but in the use of language and images that brings even mundane subjects to life. The author/narrator's older sister suffers a mental breakdown on Christmas Eve and their family will never be the same. The sister is hospitalized. Suddenly, mother and father are strangers to the child and to each other, and the child is either begging them to be themselves again or feeling that it could easily have been she in that hospital ward; she just wants to run away. Fortunately, instead of running, she chose to write. The poetry is absolutely wonderful--"...When I was lost, / you were the one /who found me. / Now you're the one /who's lost, / and I can't find you anywhere." And--"It seems/ like Sister is/ the crazy one, but what / if it's really the other way/ around/ and it's/ actually/ me who's the crazy one, / only I'm so crazy, I think/ it's her?" For anyone who has actually had this experience, the book can only be read in short doses; for anyone who hasn't, it's a fantastic view of a world we would probably not want to be a part of.

Kirkus Reviews

In a story based on real events, and told in poems, Sones explores what happened and how she reacted when her adored older sister suddenly began screaming and hearing voices in her head, and was ultimately hospitalized. 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, telling a compelling tale and presenting a painful passage through young adolescence. 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. She copes with friends who snub her, worries that she, too, will go mad, and watches her sister's slow recovery. To a budding genre that includes Karen Hesse's Out of the Dust (1997) and Virginia Euwer Wolff's Make Lemonade (1993), this book is a welcome addition. (Poetry. 10-14)