Intense, and important, especially because the author essentially is the narrator. But the poems do nothing for me except add white space and pages (of course, that's true with most novels in verse, but still...), and the whole thing seems simplistic. I think somebody needs to write a more in-depth book on the subject. And maybe from a younger brother's pov, to make it more unique. This is a quick read and might be significant to you or someone you know, so try it if you want to, but I wasn't wowed.

(Best as I can tell, it has no triggers, but if you're doing bibliotherapy don't forget to check with your client or student first.) ( )

Cookie relates the experiences of her sister who’s gone crazy and is staying in a hospital and how it’s affecting the family. Cookie worries what her friends will think, that she herself will go crazy and mostly mourns her sister, missing who she was before. Eventually she comes to grips with it, with the help of being in love, learning to appreciate her sister’s lucid moments and recognizing that things will be OK.

A series of free verse poems about when the author's older sister had a mental breakdown and was committed to an institution, this short book flew by as I read it. The author explores all of her emotions dealing with her sister's mental illness and her parents' inability to deal with it - anger, fear, sadness, and disbelief. Recommended. ( )

Die 13jährige Cookie ist völlig fertig: Ihre geliebte und bewunderte große Schwester flippte am Heiligen Abend völlig aus und wurde kurz darauf in die Psychiatrie eingewiesen. Cookie ist hin- und hergerissen zwischen der Ohnmacht, ihrer Schwester nicht helfen zu können, der Angst vielleicht selbst durchzudrehen und dem Versuch, einfach alles zu ignorieren. All diese zum Teil auch widersprüchlichen Empfindungen hält sie in meist kurzen, aber dennoch sehr aussagekräftigen Gedichten fest.
Wobei Gedicht hier weniger mit Reim oder metrischer Struktur zu tun hat, als mehr mit der speziellen Anordnung der Worte. Geht man darüber hinweg, lassen sich die Sätze wie poetische Prosa lesen. Sonya Sones schildert die Qual der kleinen Cookie ebenso überzeugend, wie sie durch deren Augen das Leid der großen Schwester beschreibt. Vermutlich weil sie selbst Ähnliches erlebt hat.
Ein kleines, sehr gefühlvolles Buch ohne Kitsch über ein Thema, dass sich nur selten zwischen zwei Buchdeckeln wiederfindet. (Und nicht nur für Jugendliche geeignet!) ( )

Sonya Sones grew to be one of my (recent) favorite authors after I read What My Mother Doesn’t Know, and soon after, What My Girlfriend Doesn’t Know. I went out and bought all her books after I read those two. But what I didn’t expect is that Stop Pretending, Sones’ first book, is an even better book than those that came after it.

Sones’ free-verse novel, Stop Pretending, does two amazing things that I haven’t witnessed in other free-verse novels so far. A majority of this book’s poems can be read separately from the others. They stand alone as very powerful works of poetry and don’t need the support of the “larger story.” At the same time, they all mesh together into that “larger story” that is hard to step away from, even with it being an emotional read. It’s the combination of these two effects that makes Sones such a great novelist and poet, all in the same work.

Being that this is strongly influenced by the author’s life growing up, I feel that it helped her create the very real main character. The poems bring the reader deep into the mind of this teenager who doesn’t know how to deal with her sister’s hospitalization. This can only come from someone who’s dealt with similar issues in real life. It also allows a reader, and even society in general, to consider all sides of the situation. It’s not just the patient who needs therapy, or just someone to talk to in general. It’s all members of a family, no matter how much they try to hide it.

Sonya Sones’ first book is by far my favorite of hers so far. It’s no wonder her books have gotten the attention they have.
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