The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus

January 24, 2011
Holly, the frazzled heroine of YA novelist Sones's latest (What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know), is a writer grappling with menopause, a daughter about to go to college, a husband who drives her crazy, and a crippling case of writer's block. Her mother is ill and in the care of an ineffectual doctor who puts her on steroids that make her violent and forgetful. In the midst of the everyday chaos, Holly has to figure out how to redefine herself as life keeps on changing on her. Sones mixes things up by writing the entire story in verse, with different anecdotes related in different types of poems (as with the concrete poem "A Brief History of My Boobs"), but that's where the story's uniqueness ends, as the whimsy of its telling splashes around in the shallow depths of the story itself. Still it's occasionally funny, and its unlikely form may be enough to entice genre enthusiasts looking for something a smidge different.

February 1, 2011

Poet-novelist Sones, whose previous work was aimed at teens (What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know, 2007, etc.), focuses on their moms in her newest verse novel about the crises facing a woman as she turns 50.

The poems, most no more than a page, follow California poet Holly as she struggles to finish her book of poetry. Holly is anxiety-ridden, not only because she can't avoid the physical "skidmarks" of age as she approaches 50, but also because her adored only daughter Sam is a high-school senior getting ready to leave Holly and her artist husband Michael empty-nesters. Then Holly's loving and beloved mother's health begins to fail in Cleveland, and guilt-ridden Holly must manage her medical care from afar. After a remarkably easy transition—Sam is the kind of fictional girl who skips a party with her friends to bake brownies (recipe included) for her grandmother and then snuggles up to watch TV with her mom—Sam heads off to college. Suddenly Holly's marriage to Michael seems less than rock solid. First she suspects he is having an affair with one of her friends, though in classic sitcom plotting he's actually been meeting with the other woman because she runs an animal shelter and he's planning to surprise Holly with a new kitty. Then visiting her mother, Holly is tempted by but resists sexual advances from her mother's doctor. When Michael is rushed to the hospital in great pain, his kidney stones become Holly's poetic metaphor for their minor marital problems. Soon Holly's mom is doing better, Sam is calling home frequently from college on the East Coast, and Holly's editor loves her finished book. (Surprisingly for a poet married to an artist, one problem Holly doesn't seem to have is financial; there are shopping sprees to the store nicely marketed in the title and no worries about where Sam's tuition will come from.)

 Midlife chick lit in verse that contains an equal measure of clever lines and clinkers.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

April 15, 2011

In her first adult novel, an ode to the sandwich generation, Sones employs the same light, free-verse style that has made her young adult titles (Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy; One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies) so popular. Dodging her book editor's calls, newly menopausal Holly finds no pleasant distraction in focusing on her family--a hospitalized mother suffering from 'roid rage and dementia, an only daughter going away to college, and a husband idling at his own midlife crossroads. Readers will smile when they see the "but" coming in a poem that begins, "My husband has many fine qualities" and sigh when Holly describes the ache she feels watching a young neighbor playing with her toddler. Somewhere between Nora Ephron and Jennifer Weiner, Sones recounts the little ouches of aging with a perfect blend of wit and tenderness. VERDICT This is what chick lit should want to be when it grows up--wise, funny, and blunt.--Karen Kleckner, Deerfield P.L., IL

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2011
Life is coming fast to Holly, who is facing 50. Her daughter is leaving for college, her 80-year-old mother in Cleveland is ill, her perfect husband may not be so perfect, and she has a book deadline to meet. Instead of explaining the complications to her very young editor, she avoids her calls like the plague and tries to sort out her life. How can your only child be leaving to go to college so far away? Will her marriage survive an empty nest? How can you convince your ill mother to come to California so you can take care of her? Will the doctor stop making bad jokes and annoying sounds while discussing your mother? Sones tackles these questions and more in this highly entertaining novel in verse that will have readers clamoring for more. Sones, a beloved and wildly popular YA novelist, brings poetry to life for readers, especially parents of teens and those coping with elder care, in this cleverly versified, insightful laughter-and-tears novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)