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A review by kblincoln
Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma
5.0
Chloe is a high school girl who lives with her father and stepmother. Only...really she's the younger sister of Ruby.
Ruby is the kind of girl who can walk into a shop and get two pairs of $15 sunglasses for $5. The kind of girl who has ex-boyfriends her Chloe can call in the middle of the night to fetch them ice pops. The kind of girl the world adjusts itself to fit.
And Ruby has come for Chloe after two years of living separately. She wants to bring Chloe back to the town where they grew up. The town where two years ago, Chloe went swimming in the reservoir and almost drowned, but found a classmate's body floating in an old rowboat instead.
Chloe goes back with her sister, and everything is just like it was two years ago. Only it's not, and Ruby doesn't have as tight a grip on the world as she thinks.
Reading Imaginary Girls is like fully immersing yourself in a warm bath of smooth prose. Chloe can't quite see the truth of what Ruby is, or the ramification of her own escape from the reservoir. While the story hints to the reader the truth; it's as blurry and muffled as a face underwater.
Chloe is utterly and totally believable as a younger sister caught up in Ruby's shadow. Her matter-of-fact acceptance of the way townspeople worship her sister, and her talk of the drowned town of Olive (under the reservoir) coats the fantastical with a thin layer of mundane. Only near the end does Chloe and the reader face the stark truth of what Ruby is capable of.
Haunting and lovely and sad. How we can create ourselves from the people around us, and how those people can tear us apart.
This Book's Snack Rating: Sea salt and vinegar Pop Chips for the taste of tears on your tongue that melts away into nothingness. After consuming the bag, you are left with the ghost of sour on your tongue to haunt the rest of your day.
Ruby is the kind of girl who can walk into a shop and get two pairs of $15 sunglasses for $5. The kind of girl who has ex-boyfriends her Chloe can call in the middle of the night to fetch them ice pops. The kind of girl the world adjusts itself to fit.
And Ruby has come for Chloe after two years of living separately. She wants to bring Chloe back to the town where they grew up. The town where two years ago, Chloe went swimming in the reservoir and almost drowned, but found a classmate's body floating in an old rowboat instead.
Chloe goes back with her sister, and everything is just like it was two years ago. Only it's not, and Ruby doesn't have as tight a grip on the world as she thinks.
Reading Imaginary Girls is like fully immersing yourself in a warm bath of smooth prose. Chloe can't quite see the truth of what Ruby is, or the ramification of her own escape from the reservoir. While the story hints to the reader the truth; it's as blurry and muffled as a face underwater.
Chloe is utterly and totally believable as a younger sister caught up in Ruby's shadow. Her matter-of-fact acceptance of the way townspeople worship her sister, and her talk of the drowned town of Olive (under the reservoir) coats the fantastical with a thin layer of mundane. Only near the end does Chloe and the reader face the stark truth of what Ruby is capable of.
Haunting and lovely and sad. How we can create ourselves from the people around us, and how those people can tear us apart.
This Book's Snack Rating: Sea salt and vinegar Pop Chips for the taste of tears on your tongue that melts away into nothingness. After consuming the bag, you are left with the ghost of sour on your tongue to haunt the rest of your day.