Stop Pretending

It happened to Sonya Sones. Her brilliant sequence of poems describes the night her 19-year-old sister suddenly turns into a screaming stranger and is taken away to a psychiatric hospital. She portrays a loving family torn apart by grief; the ordeal of hospital visits; the anxiety of a 13-year-old that her friends will reject her if they find out, or that this could happen to her too; and finally her acceptance that her life has been forever changed.This is a stunning book in the tradition of THE BELL JAR. It is the first by Sonya Sones, whose poems evoke an ordinary teenager's shattered world with powerful intensity. Deeply human and affecting, and very readable, this is an inspirational book that has already won many awards and accolades in the US, and speaks to adults just as much as teenagers.American reviews:'A tour de force. Sones never wavers ... in the authenticity of her voice' Boston Globe'This novel in verse shows the capacity of poetry to record the personal and translate it into the universal ... there are wonderful surprises' Booklist'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 ... To a budding genre ... this book is a welcome addition' Kirkus Review