11. What My Mother Doesn't Know - Sonya Sones

For: YA
Published: 2001
Rating: 4
Finished: (3rd time) Feb. 9, 2009
259 pgs.

This is a much-loved book by many female middle schoolers of my acquaintance! We're reading it for my teacher book club, so I was happy to read it again. The first time I read it I sat in an overstuffed chair in Bookman's from start to finish. It's in verse, and takes no more than an hour and a half. It reads fast. Sophie is spunky and fun, an artist with two close friends. She has a boyfriend that she quickly tires of and finds herself unusually drawn to an "outcast" that she's known since she was little. For some reason he has become the butt of jokes, but she's not sure why. He, too, is an artist, and they bump into each other over Christmas break at the Museum of Fine Arts. The story's set in Cambridge/Boston (but that's a minor point other than the museum). It's pretty light, but does make you think about how much we care about what other people think, whether we want to or not....and why would an average-looking, nice young man become such a pariah? There's another book by Sones called What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know, and it's from Murphy's point of view, if I remember correctly. The girls love it, too.