I had a difficult time with this book. The author decided to substitute different words for some of the words in the story. Which really confused me at first. If the author had chosen not to do the word substitutions, I would have probably given this book 4 stars. Because of that odd stylistic choice, however, it receives 3 stars from me. I would recommend this book, but don’t go into it thinking it will be a fast and easy read.

I loved the storyline, but I liked how the unlikeable characters were unlikeable in a reasonable way. Sophie is such a good character because she is always trying to solve her own problems and accepts help when she needs it, not like other characters who are so annoyingly stupid.

I loved this book! The full review will be posted soon at kaitgoodwin.com/books! Thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity to connect books to their readers!

I received this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. This book was written in a unique way and I guess the ending explains why...? It was quirky, and not to give too much away but it was a secret code of sorts. It was fairly predictable but with likable characters. It's hard for me to categorize this book as middle grade or YA- mostly due to the fact that language was used but it was part of the "code." I also felt that the ending was pretty realistic in that it wasn't all perfectly and impossibly resolved.

Do not be turned off by Sophie's use of language. Give this story a chance and you will understand it and appreciate both the book and the character more. I wish I could write more, but I fear giving something away.

This story deals with feeling out of place and how people cope with things differently; sometimes in unhealthy ways like Sophie 's mother. It also strongly points out that bad decisions your parents make do not make you a bad person in relation to them. I loved that Sophie had friends of all different ages all the way up to an elderly neighbor.

Sophie Someone is fresh, clever, and delightful. It is a wonderful story about friends, family, and self-esteem mixed with a little mystery.

Sophie has spent her life thinking of herself as one person, but slowly events from her past and present collide in such a way that she is convinced that she is not the person that she thought she was. Sophie embarks on a figurative and literal journey of self-discovery.

My thoughts about this book are rather conflicted. Sophie's story was intriguing, yet the unusual style with which is was told was distracting and off-putting. Especially at the beginning, I was frustrated with the author's choice of language. While everything is explained in the end, I don't understand why the particular words were chosen for change. Changing words like ticket, friend, bathroom, door, etc just seemed like an odd choice. It was the telling and the language that knocked this book from 4 stars to 3. I started it a few weeks ago before putting it down from frustration and choosing another.

A super interesting bucket. Once you get used to the different worms, and eventually find out the trumpet of her family's serpent, then it all makes sense!

Quirky and keeps you on your togs. Made my helix hurt a bit at first. :)

I have no idea what is going on with this book. I had to quit. Did Not Finish.

I don’t understand why Long chose to write it in the language she did. It’s like a more infantile Clockwork Orange, where all the words are swapped for other words. I kept wondering what the catch was. Is Sophie autistic? Is she dyslexic? Is it because she’s telling the story while she’s still a child? I don’t understand why we’re supposed to care about the language. She’s a modern girl, raised in Belgium, so one might presume there’s a language barrier, or something to constitute her weird quirks, but it’s written that way all the way through, and everyone talks that way, and it’s unexplained. This feels to me exactly like Half Bad, where the author thinks she’s being really clever and groundbreaking, and instead, it sucks everything interesting and good about her writing style and narrative away from it. She’s trying too hard to be experimental and it shows.

I had a difficult time with this book. The author decided to substitute different words for some of the words in the story. Which really confused me at first. I mean, look at this excerpt from the book:
“My don took a thick pad of pepper and some crayons from the kindle drawer and put them on the kindle tango.”
I’m pretty sure this meant: “My dad took a thick pad of paper and some crayons from the kitchen drawer and put them on the kitchen table.”
The author did this deliberately throughout the story, which wreaked havoc on my brain. I was so confused and frustrated at having to try to decipher what was going on that I almost DNF this book. I did continue reading, however. Mostly because I got this as a review copy and felt obligated to finish it. The author does eventually explain in the last couple of pages why the book was written this way, but I really feel that that information should have been included in the beginning of the book.
If you can put aside your confusion at the weird word switches, Sophie Someone turns out to be a pretty great story! It’s about a fourteen-year-old girl named Sophie who finds out her parents are hiding something huge from her. It follows her journey as she tries to discover the truth. The plot was really interesting and creative, in my opinion. I’ve never read another story with a plot similar to the one in this book. The characters were great, as well. I thought most of them were fleshed out and realistic enough to be real people.
If the author had chosen not to do the word substitutions, I would have probably given this book 4 stars. Because of that odd stylistic choice, however, it receives 3 stars from me. I would recommend this book, but don’t go into it thinking it will be a fast and easy read.

Sophie Someone

by Hayley Long

Candlewick Press

Teens & YA

Pub Date 28 Mar 2017

I am voluntarily reviewing a copy of Sophie Someone through the publisher and Netgalley:

Sophie Nieuwenleven is somewhere between English and Belgian when she was four or five her family left from England and moved to Belgium. She's fourteen now and still doesn't understand why they left.

Sophie doesn't really know who she is, she doesn't even have a birth certificate, which leads to a journey of discovery of who she is. This is a wonderful story of self discovery

I give Sophie Someone five out of five stars

Happy Reading.

What a LOVELY book!! I fell in deep with the characters, their secrets, and their stories. Such a great read!!

This will go live on my blog on March 1. Kellyvision.wordpress.com

Sophie's life is going on OK. She has good friends and a good school. She and her brother get along and she loves her parents, even though her mom is embarrassing (she's obese and agoraphobic). And then she learns her family has a major secret. (A MAJOR SECRET.)

It took me a while to get into this because Sophie has a habit of playing with words. Sometimes it's clever ("introvert" for "internet") but mostly it's just kind of annoying. (It's easy to figure out, though, and she keeps using the same words (for example, "pigeon" for "person") so it's at least consistent.

Once I got used to it (or maybe once the story got more compelling), I definitely stopped paying attention. And I started to really like Sophie.

The best part of this book, though, is the duality of everyone. A character in the book is a jerk and a bully but is also surprisingly sweet at a time she didn't have to be. Sophie's dad did a horrible thing but he's still a good dad. No one is ever just one thing (good or bad).

Sophie Someone was one of those reads that started off pretty complicated. With its own secret language, it gave the reader more to think about and for many the reason why it was placed on their DNF list. It was a bit of a mind bender in the beginning, but once I picked up on the meanings, it was a lot easier to move along the pages. Even though I caught on very quickly and it wasn't much of a hassle, I don't think I would read another book like it. I was not kept interested because of that one aspect of the novel, more because of the story within it.

Sophie is a charismatic young lady that has created her own way of speaking. She knows little about her family history, mostly because her dad has made sure to keep it from her. Her life is flipped upside down one day when her mom decides they must move away without telling anyone what they are doing and why. All she is told is they are going to new beginnings and hopefully her dad will follow suit. In this moment of her life, everything changes and secrets begin to pile high even more than before.

There are things her dad is hiding, but even so Sophie lets it go without question because she adores him. The stories he tells her, the meaning behind their last name Nieuwenleven and an all around father who wants to be there for her and her brother Hercule. With all of this taking the lead, she has little time to question why they were uprooted from their previous residence or more so why her mother is always jumpy and watchful of their every move.

She soon comes to make a friend in Comet, who she loves and adores with all her heart. Later she becomes a vital part in helping Sophie find out the truth of her family's situation, when she discovers hidden realities while searching the internet. At first doubting if anything should be done about it, she turns to Comet who makes sure she is thinking with a rational mind and then decides it is best for Sophie to finally get to the bottom of all that is surrounding them.

What lays behind all of it is pain and heartache. Facts that will make all of her existence a lie and in doing so causing her to think of her name as only Sophie Someone. She will confront both her parents and re-evaluate where this leaves them and her in the process. As everything goes downhill, Sophie will have to make a choice whether she will stay in the aftermath of it all or walk away for good. A hard decision for a young girl who has had to cope with everything in her own way.

Although I wasn't the biggest fan of Sophie's personal language, I very much enjoyed this read. There was depth and honest family moments. Her character kept me coming back for more, and that little brother of hers was just so likable. His love for all things Doctor Who, made it that much better. Except the part where he uses his sonic screwdriver to jam it into the toaster, that is another crazy part of this story for another time.

***I received this copy from Candlewick Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.***