One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies by Sonya Sones

One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies is my second book by Sonya Sones. I read What My Mother Doesn't Know a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it, but for some reason it took me this long to pick up the other. This makes no sense at all, especially when you consider just how quickly you (I) can read one of them!

This one felt a little more light weight than the other, which seems odd given the plot line. In this one 15 year old Ruby's mom has died and she is shipped off across the country to live with her famous movie star dad, whom she has never met. She's prepared to hate him, given that he's never paid any attention to her and she really misses her old life in Boston.  Like What My Mother Doesn't Know, this one is written in free verse and is a very fast read.  It only covers a couple of months time, but (of course) Ruby learns a lot about her past and what really happened with her father, and that maybe life in LA won't be all bad.

If you're looking for a little light weight young adult fiction, I recommend that you pick one of these up. If you're looking for something to sustain you on a long plane ride, maybe skip it (for now), because you'll be done before the plane boards. Despite seeming like a heavy topic, this is really not a very serious book and you should not avoid it because of the death of the mother.


Have you read anything by Sones?  What about other free verse authors? I am not a big fan of poetry (ok, I'll admit it, it bores me silly!) but I did really like the style of both of these.


Other links of interest:
My brief review of What My Mother Doesn't Know
Sonya Sones website
More from Simon & Schuster


One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies
Sonya Sones
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
2005
272 pages
source: my local library


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What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones

On Wednesday morning I was hopping around reading blogs and one of the posts was about a book called What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones. In the course of the post the prequel to it was mentioned, that book was What My Mother Doesn't Know. I didn't write down the title, or the blog it came from (a habit I am trying to develop) because I really didn't want more books on my list that I would never get around to reading. I've tried to go back and find that post, but no luck. If that was your blog, and you're reading this, please comment. I'd like to thank you. You see, on Wednesday afternoon, I went to the library. And since I was already upstairs to get The Giver, well, I picked this up too. I practically read it in one sitting. It was that good. Thanks.

Here's the summary from the flap:

My name is Sophie.
This book is about me.
It tells
the heart-stoppingly
riveting story
of my first love.
And also of my second.
And, okay, my third love too.

It's not that I'm boy crazy.
It's just that even though
I'm almost
fifteen
it's like
my mind
and my body
and my heart
just don't
seem to be able to agree
on anything.

That's a fairly good example of the entire book, actually. The whole thing is written free verse, and is remarkably easy to read. This is a book aimed at young adults. Sophie is a freshman. It was so lovely and honest and I thought did a great job of showing how Sophie felt. It's a lot about falling in love, falling out of love, a little about friendship, and not much of anything else. It was excellent, and now I need my own copy.

I marked a few pages to go back to. Some of the "chapters" are breathtaking. There are two examples here, but they should be considered very slight spoilers. I'm not sure how they hold up outside of the plot.