Review #2 Poetry or Verse Novel

Sones, Sonya. What My Mother Doesn't Know.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.

Annotation:

Sophie dreams of the perfect romance,

and she is going to find it.

One way or another.

But at what cost?


Justification for Rejection:

Sones has crafted a remarkable journey through a young girls quest for true love. Sophie, raised by a mother addicted to daytime soaps, has a flair for the dramatic and a yearning for romance. She finds magic and meaning in every touch and every glance from the boys around her, which sometimes leads her to "practically a religious experience." Sophie is joined in her quest by her two best friends, equally as exciteable by the idea of boys and endless love. Throughout the novel, Sophie questions the qualities she seeks in her mates, and eventually questions the social influences that guide her. In the end she discovers that love lies in true friendship, rather than popularity and good looks.

The function and use of verse sturcture inthis novel is one of the best parts about it. Sones has truly mimiced the fleetingness of adolescence by formating her story through a series of very brief "moments." And despite the fragmented nature of the episodes, the story itself maintains a lovely linear flow. It is a very fast read, and the over-the-top emotional expression is reminiscient of my own boy-crazy fantasies at that age.

The reason I must recommend this novel for rejection is the narrow range of audience appeal. Sophie, although very much like myself as a teen, is not a character that a wide range of young readers is going to relate to. Male readers will have almost no interest in Sophie at all. Although Sophie goes through a processes of discovery, she is the only character that has any kind of depth at all (and it's not a lot). Her two friends, and the boys she writes about have no dimension other than the biased teenage judgement provided by Sophie herself. I also had a hard time with believability of character, because Sophie made some very tough decisions that a girl of her mindset would probably not make in the time frame that Sones has laid out.

Genre: Verse Novel/Coming of Age/Social Issues