Stop Pretending

By the by, everyone check out the announcements page, I posted a very cool picture for a book I am very excited about coming out! The book covers are always beautiful and I can't wait to get my hands on this one. Other news, James Dashner said that us 13th Reality fans will be able to stop bothering him about a date for the release of The Void Of Mist and Thunder soon. Apparently the book was written and done a year ago and they have just been hiding it from us! But at least we will soon have a date to look forward to. OK, can't think of anymore business...
Updated reading list, I am reading Kiss by Ted Dekker and Erin Healy. As usual, I am loving the mystery and suspense of Ted Dekker's writing and I like Erin Healy's contributions, wherever those are coming in. I am also reading Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon and really not loving it. It seems like really cliched dialogue, but maybe it will turn out better. Oh, and I am also finishing up Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut, so look for a review on that one coming up.
Alrighty, on to the book. The book of the day is Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy by Sonya Sones. It is a very very short book written in choppy free-verse poetry based on the author's experience of her older sister being checked into a mental hospital when she was a young girl. The poetry is utterly gorgeous and I was sucked in immediately. I started reading and couldn't put the book down, which was actually OK because it only took me about 1 1/2 hours to finish the whole book.The main character is so easy to identify with. She is so pressured about her sister not being who she once was. She is terrified by the idea that her friends might find out, she worries about what people will say when they find out her sister is crazy, she worries about her sister in a sanitized room, and she worries about herself: if her sister went crazy, will she go crazy too?

This is one of those characters where you just want to give them a hug, because no one else in their lives will. I hope with all my heart I will never have to endure what she does. I think this is a beautiful book that will not take long to read, so it doesn't put you out at all. It also really leaves you thinking. I loved the poetry of it. I especially adore the poem where she talks about a boy, "I wasn't pretty until he called me pretty." It sounds like she has low self esteem, but who didn't feel like that? Up to that point, it has been your family and your friends who say you are pretty, and now this boy says you are pretty? I guarantee if you haven't had that happen yet, when you do you will understand that poem!

So go read it! The whole book, because it will stay with you for a long time after you have closed the pages.

Rating: 4/5