Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #60821 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 259 pages

Amazon.com Review
Meet Sophie. She sees herself as the too-tall "Mount Everest of teenage girls," who, along with her friends, often suffers from "lackonookie disease." She's dating smoky, sexy Dylan, covertly chatting online with "cybersoul"-mate Chaz, and secretly nursing a crush on sweet, geeky Murphy. Her two best friends are closer to her than sisters, and she "hates hating" her soap opera-addicted mom, wishing "she would show half as much interest in my life as she does in Luke and Laura's." In other words, Sophie is a typical teenage girl. What is not so typical is how author Sonia Sones records all of Sophie's thoughts in a freewheeling verse that is such a naked outpouring of inner longing, most readers will blush in embarrassed recognition of their own remembered or current teenage desires. Sones gently leads both the reader and Sophie towards an understanding of the difference between love and lust as Sophie slowly comes to realize that Dylan's outsides are no match for Murphy's insides. Autobiographical of Sones, perhaps? The author claims it isn't so, and she's probably right. With her frank manner, lusty thoughts, and hidden insecurities, Sophie reflects many teenage girls, past and present. No woman will be able to read this heartfelt verse novel and not find a bit of herself in Sophie's secret, sexy thoughts. Sones's decadent, almost shamefully delicious collection of angst poems is a loving and amazingly accurate tribute to adolescent girlhood. (Ages 12 and older) --Jennifer Hubert

From Publishers Weekly
*Starred Review* 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 clich‚d, "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.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
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 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

One of My Favorite Books
I absolutely adore this book! I picked it up off of a Books-A-Million bargain table on a whim, thinking it would be a nice light read to occupy my time on a way home. It turned out that this is one of the best young adult books I have ever read. I leant it to two of my friends, both of whom agree that this book rocks!

What My Mother Doesn't Know is the story of Sophie, an artsy young girl with a flair for poetry and an unlucky love life. The book is written in an unorthodox style, the pages consisting of short poems summarizing one or more days of Sophie's life. She discusses three of the boys she fell (or thought she fell) in love with when she was a girl, and what she learned about giving her heart away.

This book is perfect for young people whom prefer light, beachy, fast, touching reads to deep, intense, detailed, and serious novels longer than the encylopedia. I highly recommend it to anyone who can identify with an innocent heart's first attempt at love and the loss that accompanies the failure. Prepare to laugh, cry, and most of all, relate to the entire thing. Pick up a copy right now! Now, I said!

Angieville: WHAT MY MOTHER DOESN'T KNOW
And so continues my growing penchant for novels in verse. I was skeptical but I have come to see the error of my ways and am now rapidly working my way through the really great stuff that's out there. This is a sweet, funny story told in verse about fifteen-year-old Sophie and her hilarious friend Robin Murphy. Sophie is part of the popular crowd, while Robin is....not. He's so not popular that ever since grade school his last name has been synonymous with loser or an act of extreme loserness. As in "Don't be such a Murphy." Junior high sure was fun, wasn't it? *gag* I liked Sones' spare writing style and I really liked Sophie and Robin--two teenagers who aren't immune to all the heinous social pain/baggage that comes with high school but who learn how to watch each other's backs and make it out alive. We should all be so scrappy.

what my mother dosent know
I bought this book for my thirteen and a half year old granddaughter. I read the reviews on the book, and knowing she was an old thirteen, thought it appropriate. Her mother was upset, as the book is to adult, and maybe used for a sixteen year old.