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From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

At almost 15, Sophie is trying to make sense of her intense emotions, unreliable hormones, and ever-changing feelings. A novel told through a series of prose poems speaks in Sophie’s lively, gut-level honest voice. Her confusion as the rapture she once felt just thinking about her boyfriend Dylan cools to ambivalence, and then to irritation, is refreshingly realistic. So, too, is her fascination at meeting someone who seems to love her wholly for her mind — an exchange taking place on the internet that tests Sophie’s self-possession in a chilling moment of revelation. Sophie’s relationship with her mother is punctuated by typical teen frustrations, with an undercurrent of something more serious. Her mother’s behavior suggests she is a woman battling depression, and that Sophie knows something isn’t right. But it is Sophie’s growing attraction to a boy named Murphy, who has been the butt of his classmates’ jokes for years, that proves to be her biggest test of character and strength. This novel deftly embodies the angst, frustration, humor, and joy of adolescent life. (Age 13 and older)

CCBC Choices 2002 © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2002. Used with permission.

From Publisher's Weekly

Starred review from February 24, 2003
"Drawing on the recognizable cadence of teenage speech, the author poignantly captures the tingle and heartache of being young and boy-crazy," wrote PW
in a starred review. "She weaves separate free verse poems into a fluid and coherent narrative with a satisfying ending." Ages 12-up.

From Publisher's Weekly

Starred review from October 15, 2001
Drawing on the recognizable cadences of teenage speech, Sones (Stop Pretending) poignantly captures the tingle and heartache of being young and boy-crazy. The author keenly portrays ninth-grader Sophie's trajectory of lusty crushes and disillusionment whether she is gazing at Dylan's "smoldery dark eyes" or dancing with a mystery man to music that "is slow/ and/ saxophony." Best friends Rachel and Grace provide anchoring friendships for Sophie as she navigates her home life as an only child with a distant father and a soap opera–devotee mother whose "shrieking whips around inside me/ like a tornado." Some images of adolescent changes carry a more contemporary cachet, "I got my period… I prefer/ to think of it as/ rebooting my ovarian operating system," others are consciously clichéd, "my molehills/ have turned into mountains/ overnight"—this just makes Sophie seem that much more familiar. With its separate free verse poems woven into a fluid and coherent narrative with a satisfying ending, Sophie's honest and earthy story feels destined to captivate a young female audience, avid and reluctant readers alike. Ages 12-up.

From School Library Journal

October 1, 2001
Gr 6-8-A story written in poetry form. Sophie is happily dating Dylan, "until he's practically glued himself to my side." Then she falls for cyberboy ("if I could marry a font/I'd marry his"). Imagine her surprise when he becomes downright scary. In the satisfying ending, Sophie finds the perfect boyfriend-someone she's known all along. Sones is a bright, perceptive writer who digs deeply into her protagonist's soul. There she reveals the telltale signs of being "boy crazy"; the exciting edginess of cyber romances; the familiar, timeless struggle between teens and parents; and the anguish young people feel when their parents fight. But life goes on, and relationships subtly change. Sones's poems are glimpses through a peephole many teens may be peering through for the first time, unaware that others are seeing virtually the same new, scary, unfamiliar things (parents having nuclear meltdowns, meeting a boyfriend's parents, crying for no apparent reason). In What My Mother Doesn't Know, a lot is revealed about the teenage experience- ("could I really be falling for that geek I dissed a month ago?"), clashes with close friends, and self-doubts. It could, after all, be readers' lives, their English classes, their hands in a first love's. Of course, mothers probably do know these goings-on in their daughters' lives. It's just much easier to believe they don't. Sones's book makes these often-difficult years a little more livable by making them real, normal, and OK.-Sharon Korbeck, Waupaca Area Public Library, WI

Copyright 2001 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.