luizamjc 's review for:

The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth

4.5

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

---

Ok, so I started this book thinking I was not going to like it. The story seemed interesting, but it is a bit complicated when autistic people are represented by a (as far as I know) non-autistic author. And Fern’s descriptions in the beginning seem a bit problematic. But then this changes throughout the book while you figure things out and understand what’s really happening there. I didn’t think the plot was predictable like I’ve seen some people saying. I mean, it was to a certain extent, but the details still surprised me, and even though I had generally figured out what had happened, once I hit like the 200th page I literally could not stop reading cause I needed to know the details and what was going to happen. Fern and Wally are very loveable characters and their love really made me emotional. I loved the ending. However, I do think that it might contain some problematic representation of some mental illnesses that could be harmful to the people who have them. I think the part of Rose’s presumed diagnosis could’ve been left out.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Murder, Pregnancy

Moderate: Ableism, Grief, Death of parent, Gaslighting

Minor: Infertility, Vomit

one character who is portrayed as a very bad person and has killed people is said to possibly have borderline personality disorder, which I think might be triggering if you have it