A wry and riveting debut novel about family, mental illness, and a hard-won path between two sisters It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight, but when her stunning confidence morphs into something erratic and unpredictable, she becomes a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Put simply, she has no brakes. Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, survives Ollie’s bullying and outcast status throughout her school years. She dreams of winning a Nobel Prize and unlocking the mysteries of the mind. Amy believes in facts, proof, and the empirical world. Except none of that can explain what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the bipolar disorder that will shatter Amy’s carefully constructed world. As Amy comes of age and seeks to find her place—first in academics, then New York publishing, and through a series of troubled relationships—every step brings collisions with Ollie, who slips in and out of the Shred family without warning. For all that upends and unsettles these sisters, an inextricable bond always draws them back. Spanning two decades, Shred Sisters is an intimate and bittersweet story exploring the fierce complexities of sisterhood, mental health, loss and love. If anything is true it’s what Amy learns on her road to self-acceptance: No one will love you or hurt you more than a sister.
That feeling of crisis when you haven't read any of the nominated books. Only this one is in my library, as Want-To-Read. Better get started!
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[arc courtesy of netgalley & grove press]
Ok, first things first, I devoured and inhaled this book in one sitting. I'm a sucker for complicated sibling relationships, as the youngest of three with both of my sibings being 10+ years older. My relationship with my sister looks nothing like Ollie and Amy's relationship, but there are always elements of tension and pettiness and outright meanness in any sibling relationship.
One thing I loved about Amy as a narrator is how she is both equal parts detached/dissociating from her predicament, but simultaneously lasers in on her experiences as a younger sibling/youngest daughter. She understands the injustice but is so resigned to it and that is portrayed so fluidly.
What I didn't love about this is while it was a fast/fluid plotline, the ending was a little predictable - I didn't love how trope-y therapy was portrayed (that ending was an eye roll I'm sorry), and I didn't love that Ollie's problems were suddenly fixed and she amended decades of a manic depressive disorder by the birth of a child. I'm not saying it's unrealistic, I'm saying that it made the ending feel rushed.
All in all, this was a solid 4 star read - I was engaged from beginning to (mostly the) end.
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