Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Sister Went Crazy by Sonya Sones

Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Sister Went Crazy by Sonya Sones

 

1.      Bibliography

Sones, Sonya. Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Sister Went Crazy. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1999.  ISBN 0439250706.

2.      Plot Summary

Stop Pretending is a memoir of a 13-year-old whose big sister suddenly shows symptoms of manic-depression.  The narrator doesn’t understand what is happening to her sister.  And, the situation affects her relationship with her sister, the relationship with her parents, the relationship between her parents and the relationship with her friends.  She tells about the initial reaction to her sister’s hospitalization, her parents fighting and the secret that she keeps from her friends.  Eventually, her sister’s treatment helps to even out her temperament, the narrator’s friends accept that she has not changed and she finds her first love.

3.      Critical Analysis

The author uses blank verse which lends itself to the power of images and is a compelling and is a provocative memoir. Read individually, each poem seems ordinary enough, but when read altogether their power is remarkable. Many of the poems can be sad or depressing to read, but the book ends much happier. The free verse used has very specific punctuation marks, pauses and spaces embedded into the poems which help with the rhyme of the story. All of the elements of plot come together with the climax being about three-quarters of the way in, and the resolution is not an ending but rather a new start, leaving the reader with a sense of gratification.

The author’s use of spacing in words and lines also demonstrates concrete ideas throughout the book. The poem that tells when the author mustered the courage to tell her two best friends about her sister is titled “Molly, Kate,        and Me”. The space between the other two girls and the author shows the gap the two girls place between themselves and the narrator after they learn the specifics of her sister’s illness. Board games are a recurring theme in the book as well. Approximately one-third of the way through the book, there is a poem entitled, “Trying to Play Monopoly”. This enterprise doesn’t turn out well, ending with the author’s sister throwing a tantrum. The last poem of the book, “In the Visiting Room”, features the family playing Scrabble. This event goes much differently than the last. In comparison to the monopoly game, this time the family is happier.

4.      Review Excerpts

2000 American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults

2000 Quick Picks for Young Adults from Books for Reluctant Young Readers

From School Library Journal: “All of the emotions and feelings are here, the tightness in the teen's chest when thinking about her sibling in the hospital, her grocery list of adjectives for mental illness, and the honest truth in the collection's smallest poem."

From The Boston Globe: “Stop Pretending is a tour de force debut.  It celebrates truth-telling and has a purity and passion that speaks to the heart.”

From Kirkus Review: “The poems take on life and movement, the individual frames of a movie that in the unspooling become animated, telling a compelling tale.”

5.      Connections

Gather and read other books by Sonya Jones, such as:

      What My Mother Doesn’t Know. ISBN 1442493852
      One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies. ISBN 1442493836

Gather and read other books about mental illness, such as:

      Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. ISBN 0060837020
      Green, Hannah. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. ASIN B001ZR08FE
      Neufield, John. Lisa, Bright and Dark. ISBN 0451166841

Gather and read other children’s memoirs such as:

      Uwiringiyimana, Sandra.  How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child.  ISBN 0062470140
      Buergenthal, Thomas.  A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy. ISBN 0316339180

Have students create their own free verse poem about a time in their life that was a challenge.

Use in a Psychology Class when discussing mental illness.