Sonya Sones

One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies

Fifteen-year-old Ruby Milliken leaves her best friend, her boyfriend, her aunt, and her mother's grave in Boston and reluctantly flies to Los Angeles to live with her father, a famous movie star who divorced her mother before Ruby was born.

One of those hideous books where the mother dies

Lisa Collins

I went into One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies by Sonya Sones biasedly because I’ve read and liked other novels by Sonya Sones before. As far as novels-in-verse go, her books are short, sweet, to the point, and surprisingly thorough in their low page numbers. One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies is no exception. It was a wonderful book.

One of the first things I noticed when I started this novel was how sarcastic and witty the main character, Ruby, was. Sarcastic characters always walk a fine line between funny and annoying. As a reader, I loved Ruby’s brand of sarcasm. The girl had just lost her mom and her home, so it was easy to forgive her even when she did say something annoying. Not to say she annoyed me. She didn’t… but I can see how people in the story might have been irritated at the least. She was your typical difficult teenager going through some tough times. I feel like her character development didn’t really go anywhere until almost the end of the book, which is a bummer because I would have liked to read a little bit more about things looking up. Oh, well. It was worth it anyway.

One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies was a very character-driven novel with an interesting story to tell. The story, in fact, had the opportunity to be very dark, but with Ruby’s sense of humor and some other interesting characters everything balanced out and made this novel a wonderful blend of light and heavy. There’s a lot of misunderstandings, a lot of coming to terms with things, and a bit of snark. This book is short, so I would definitely read it again and recommend it to everyone else. In a nutshell: short, sweet, and totally worth the time.

Anna Bold

Written in free-verse poems, this novel follows fifteen-year-old Ruby as she moves from Boston to La after her mother dies to live with her famous movie star father, whom she has never met and is determined to dislike.

One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies

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