One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies

Sonya Sones

Jun 2008 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

My name is Ruby.
This book is about me.
It tells the deeply hideous story
of what happens when my mother dies
and I'm dragged three thousand miles away
from my gorgeous boyfriend, Ray,
to live in L.A. with my father,
who I've never even met
because he's such a scumbag that he
divorced my mom before I was born.

The only way I've ever even seen him
is in the movies,
since he's this megafamous actor
who's been way too busy
trying to win Oscars
to even visit me once in fifteen years.
Everyone loves my father.
Everyone but me.

Ratings and reviews

I personally love this book because it reminds me of a teen version of the American classic Cinderella. A girl who's mother dies and she is forced to live with the "wicked" parent, her dad, who she thinks divorced her mom and moved to LA before she was born. When a natural disaster hits, Ruby's dad keeps her safe and then explains the missing puzzle pieces to her family history. The Cinderella story with a twist, this book is definitely one of my favorites that all middle-schoolers should consider reading.

A really good book. One of my favorites. I love how it's in poem form so you can read it really fast but it doens't sound like poem. It just sounds like a normal novel. It's a page turner! I don't like reading but this was a really good book.I think sh'es my favorite author.

Mother dies and girls has to go live with famous father who shes never meet. She adopts to their bussy neighborhood and learns to love her new father. Book text is like a poem, but doesn't rhythm

About the author

Sonya Sones has written five YA novels-in-verse: To Be Perfectly Honest (A Novel Based on an Untrue Story), Stop Pretending, One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies, What My Mother Doesn’t Know, and its companion, What My Girlfriend Doesn’t Know. Her books have received many honors, including a Christopher Award, the Myra Cohn Livingston Poetry Award, and a Los Angeles Times Book Prize nomination. But the coolest honor she ever got was when What My Mother Doesn’t Know made it onto the American Library Association’s list of the Top 100 Most Banned Books of the Decade (to see why, see p.46). She lives near the beach in southern California, and only tells the occasional fib. Visit her at SonyaSones.com or follow @SonyaSones on Twitter.