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A review by wynne_ronareads
My Sister's Bones by Cathi Hanauer
5.0
I read this book in high school, and ever since then I've listed it as a favorite book. I was reading it right around the time I'd gotten my hands on Incubus' "Megalomaniac" album, so when I listen to that I think of this book and vice versa. (Just in case you're looking for a soundtrack.) Since I first read it, I've read the book a few more times, the same copy in the same library where I originally read it. I have searched for it in book stores, but have never been able to find it in store.
Billie's story is so relatable, there isn't one plot line that seems stretched. The reviews I've read that say there is too much going on don't seem to understand how this novel relates to life. How many lives have just one or two big things going on? We're constantly juggling our relationships with other people, our jobs, our family, our thoughts about ourselves, our schedules-and that's what this book does with Bilie's life. She's not an extraordinary girl who learns any big lesson that makes you want to sigh and nod your head knowingly at the end. Everything in this book--Billie's overbearing parents who are in desperate denial about the eating disorder their older daughter is suffering from, her best friend whose family has a secret of their own, the two young men Billie has her first relationships with, and even her learning to come to grips with who she wants to be as a young woman, everything is rich and layered and wonderful and relatable. There's a reason its spent so much time on my favorites list.
Billie's story is so relatable, there isn't one plot line that seems stretched. The reviews I've read that say there is too much going on don't seem to understand how this novel relates to life. How many lives have just one or two big things going on? We're constantly juggling our relationships with other people, our jobs, our family, our thoughts about ourselves, our schedules-and that's what this book does with Bilie's life. She's not an extraordinary girl who learns any big lesson that makes you want to sigh and nod your head knowingly at the end. Everything in this book--Billie's overbearing parents who are in desperate denial about the eating disorder their older daughter is suffering from, her best friend whose family has a secret of their own, the two young men Billie has her first relationships with, and even her learning to come to grips with who she wants to be as a young woman, everything is rich and layered and wonderful and relatable. There's a reason its spent so much time on my favorites list.