cover image WHAT MY MOTHER DOESN'T KNOW

WHAT MY MOTHER DOESN'T KNOW

Sonya Sones, . . S&S, $17 (272pp) ISBN 978-0-689-84114-9

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. (Oct.)