Alice's Review: The Good Sister

Author: Jamie Kain
Series: None
Publication Date: October 7, 2014
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Pages: 304
Obtained:  Publisher
Genre:   Young Adult, Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 5/5
Bottom Line: Beautifully dark and tragic novel about sisters.
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Grab!

Summary:  The Kinsey sisters live in an unconventional world. Their parents are former flower-children who still dont believe in rules. Their small, Northern California town is filled with free spirits and damaged souls seeking refuge from the real world. Without the anchor of authority, the three girls are adrift and have only each other to rely on. Rachel is wild. Asha is lost. Sarah, the good sister, is the glue that holds them together. But the forces of a mysterious fate have taken Sarahs life in a sudden and puzzling accident, sending her already fractured family into a tailspin of grief and confusion. Asha has questions. Rachel has secrets. And Sarah, waking up in the afterlife, must piece together how she got there. ~powells.com

Review:  The Good Sister is a poignant story about three teenagers so different from each other you wouldn’t believe they were even related, let alone sisters. The novel begins with the aftermath of Sarah’s death. It carries us through her transition to the afterlife and the impact her death has on her two younger sisters. It may sound a little hokey but it is far from it.

Asha’s struggle with Sarah’s death is heartbreaking to read. Sarah was her idol, her confidant, her friend. The void she feels is overwhelming and with no one to turn to, you can imagine how desolate her life is.

I just loved Rachel. I am so drawn to a character that is completely flawed almost to the point of no redemption. Rachel is that character. I loved that she was all kinds of broken and imperfect and evil and wrong. She was so incredibly ugly and cringeworthy, yet she was the one character I wanted to know more. I find characters like her a classic example of the Shrek Onion philosophy...ogre’s have many layers and so does Rachel.

As I got to know Sarah, I questioned whether or not she really was the good sister. She wasn’s perfect, no one is.

There is a lot to take from this novel, the most important being jealousy is an loathsome thing. There are also many questions you will ask yourself as you read it. Can there be redemption to selfish acts? Who do you turn to when you have no one?

I know this novel is for young adults, but it reads far more mature than the genre suggests. It's worth buying, it's worth reading.  The Good Sister is tragic, yet tragedy carries a certain beauty. It’s the kind of beauty you can’t find in happy endings. The Good Sister is beautiful.

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