Stop Pretending: What Happened when My Big Sister Went Crazy
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,...
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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)KLIATTThis revised edition of Sones's highly praised poetry/novel (her first publication) closely relates to Sones's personal history, and the Afterword explains how her older sister (at 19) was placed in a mental institution with manic-depressive illness when Sones herself was 13 years old. She explains that her sister eventually recovered with the help of medication and therapy and that she fully supports this book because it will help teenagers understand mental illness and the family crisis such illness causes. There is a list at the end of the book of organizations to contact if readers are worried about their own mental health or that of a member of their family. The poetry is compelling. It is so heartfelt: the pain and confusion of a young teenager when her family life dissolves into chaos because of mental illness. The older sister in Stop Pretending is hospitalized for months. Today, most patients are in a 72-hour hold situation, with medications and therapy used on an outpatient basis. This only means that a family today will have their ill family member living in their household, not "put away" in a hospital—so the poetry of Sones is relevant whatever the ultimate therapy. This book is an ALA Best Book for YAs; it won the Christopher Award and several poetry prizes.
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.\ \ \ My Sister's Christmas Eve Breakdown\ One day\ she was my big\ sister, so normal and\ well-behaved, the next she was a\ stranger\ rushing\ out the door to\ Midnight Mass, a wild-eyed\ Jewish girl wearing only a\ nightgown.\ One day\ he was my dad,\ so calm and quiet and\ in control, the next he was a\ stranger\ dragging\ my big sister\ away from the door, up\ the stairs, screaming so loud that my\ ears stung.\ One day\ she was my mom,\ so reliable and good in\ a crisis, the next she was a\ stranger\ standing\ stock still with her\ hands clamped over her mouth\ and her eyes squeezed shut, not even\ breathing.\ That day\ I sank into\ the wall, wondering what\ these three people were doing in\ my house\ and I\ shouted that they\ had to stop, even though\ I wasn't supposed to talk to\ strangers.\ \ \ Three A.M. That Same Night\ She hasn't gone to Mass,\ hasn't gone to sleep,\ hasn't stopped to catch her breath-\ she can't stop talking.\ She's showing me her stuff,\ tons of stuff she bought,\ stuff she bought this afternoon\ when she went shopping.\ Our bedroom's filled with bags,\ way too many bags,\ bags crammed full with too much stuff,\ they're overflowing.\ She's emptying them out:\ fifty bars of soap,\ feather dusters, Ping-Pong balls,\ a ski mask, fishbowls,\ twelve pairs of sexy shoes\ (the kind she never wears),\ stationerymonogrammed\ with wrong initials.\ I'm huddled on my bed,\ wrapped up in my quilt,\ listening to Sister rave\ on and on and\ just outside the door\ angry whispers rise.\ Trying not to let us hear,\ our parents fight.\ I'm huddled on my bed,\ rocking in my quilt,\ wishing I could fall asleep\ and end this nightmare.\ Stop Pretending. Copyright © by Sonya Sones. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
\ 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."\ \ \ \ \ ALA Booklist (starred review)“The poems have a cumulative emotional power.”\ \ \ The Horn Book"Sensitively written."\ \ \ \ \ ALA Booklist"The poems have a cumulative emotional power."\ \ \ \ \ Chicago Tribune on Lucy Sullivan“This debut novel shows the capacity of poetry to record the personal and translate it into the universal.”\ \ \ \ \ barnesandnoble.com“Beautiful and disturbing.”\ \ \ \ \ Children's LiteratureThis 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.\ \ \ \ \ KLIATTThis revised edition of Sones's highly praised poetry/novel (her first publication) closely relates to Sones's personal history, and the Afterword explains how her older sister (at 19) was placed in a mental institution with manic-depressive illness when Sones herself was 13 years old. She explains that her sister eventually recovered with the help of medication and therapy and that she fully supports this book because it will help teenagers understand mental illness and the family crisis such illness causes. There is a list at the end of the book of organizations to contact if readers are worried about their own mental health or that of a member of their family. The poetry is compelling. It is so heartfelt: the pain and confusion of a young teenager when her family life dissolves into chaos because of mental illness. The older sister in Stop Pretending is hospitalized for months. Today, most patients are in a 72-hour hold situation, with medications and therapy used on an outpatient basis. This only means that a family today will have their ill family member living in their household, not "put away" in a hospital—so the poetry of Sones is relevant whatever the ultimate therapy. This book is an ALA Best Book for YAs; it won the Christopher Award and several poetry prizes.\ \ \ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsIn 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)\ \
