Stop Pretending

Bibliographic Information
Sones, Sonya. 1999. STOP PRETENDING. HarperCollins Publishers. New York, NY. ISBN 0060283866

Plot
This collection of free verse poems is the life experience of a thirteen year old girl who has watched her nineteen year old sister be committed to a psychiatric ward. Through free verse poems, Sones describes the loss of her sister, the breakup of her family, and the powerlessness she feels during the entire event. This collection explores the experiences of the girl’s mother who grows severely depressed, her father’s way of handling things with alcohol, and her fears of also going crazy. In a moment of weakness, she tells her friends about her situation, and instead of supporting her, they end up snubbing her and help circulate the rumor about her sister’s crazy condition. Sones even discusses her situation when she was lost in the hospital and was accosted by another patient, describes the wonderful outing with her new friend that abruptly ends with her getting ‘felt-up’ by her friends’ brother, and the sweet bliss of a first love. This specific book ends with an explanation of her sister’s condition and resources to get help for mental illness.

Critical Analysis
For any child who has gone through severe trauma, the emotions that are left behind are confusing, frightening, and, unfortunately, ignored. Sones, however, has shed light to her innermost experiences in fresh and figurative language that keeps the reader hooked to the end of the book. Her free verse poems offer various rhythms, beats, and cadences in a gentle and understanding way on a subject that can be otherwise uncomfortable to discuss. The amazing thing about this collection of poems is written as if she is a close friend, whispering her thoughts and feelings to you through the telephone late one night when everyone else has gone to sleep. She openly shares her fears, her insecurities, and a few memorable moments that make the tough times seem not so bad in an elegant and friendly style . The most interesting fact about Sones’ poems is how she will often play on words to make her point. In the poem “Instead of Studying During Study Hall,” she makes her point: “She’s not my real sister./ I don’t have/ any/of the same genes as her,/ not one single same gene,/not one/single/insane/gene.” This same type of emphasis is made in the poem “First Date.” “Our eyes/are glued to the/ screen, but our thoughts are glued/ to the spot where are elbows are/touching.” In a thin little volume, this book of poetry helps one deal with the uncertainty of any unsettling family event, and sheds light into the stereotyping of mental illness.

Review Excerpts
Kirkus: 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…this book is a welcome addition.

School Library Journal: An unpretentious, accessible book that could provide entry points for a discussion about mental illness-its stigma, its realities, and its affect on family members. Based on the journals Sones wrote at the age of 13 when her 19-year-old sister was hospitalized due to manic depression, the simply crafted but deeply felt poems reflect her thoughts, fears, hopes, and dreams during that troubling time. In one poem, the narrator fears that "If I stay/any longer/than an hour,/ I'll see that my eyes/have turned into her eyes,/my lips/have turned into her lips, ." She dreads having her friends learn of her sister's illness. "If I told them that my sister's nuts,/they might act sympathetic,/but behind my back/would everyone laugh?" and wonders what she could have done to prevent the breakdown. 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, "I don't want to see you./I dread it./There./I've said it." An insightful author's note and brief list of organizations are included.

Connections
Try to invite someone from the community who lives successfully with a mental disorder to speak to students about it. In fact the more people to form a panel, the better. Discuss many of the issues brought up in the book:
Family reaction
Stereotypes against mental illness
Jokes
How friends/family reacted to it
Treatment
Ways to get help
Follow up with showing several clips of the new movie LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, a gentle and heart warming movie about a town that embraces a doll a man insists is a real girl. Discuss how easy it would be for people to laugh at their situation and ignore it. Instead, focus on the positive choices his family makes, people in the church make, and his co-workers make to eventually deal with the doll’s death, and his interest in a real human woman.