'In My Sister's Country'

Lise Haines

I have abandoned my star system of rating books. That works for movies, but I think that books are to complex to be summed up in a short series of symbols, even for a brief opinion of how much I liked the book. So no more stars for me!

This book was one of those books (for me) that you start reading, and realize halfway through that you don't actually want to be reading it, but you can't put it down. Following the life of a teenager's whimsical, sometimes desperate actions as she goes through life dwelling with her viciously manipulative older sister, this book grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go, even after you've read the last word on the last page.

From the tragic, terminally ill figure of her mother and absent cold, clinical father, to the shallow friend and impossible older sister, this book weaves in and out of desperate sadness to a sick kind of levity, but over it all weighs an oppressive feeling of... truth. The book is fictional, but the story is told in such a way that you can imagine Molly out there somewhere really going through everything detailed in the pages.

It's hard to swallow at times, but the book is a quick read at only 304 pages. I finished it in under a day. It's worth it.