The Shadow Sister

by Lily Meade Narrated by Tamika Katon-Donegal

Overview

What happens when your sister disappears, and then returns, changed in ways trauma alone can't explain?

Sutton going missing is the worst thing that could have happened to Casey, to their family. She's trying to help find her sister, but Casey is furious. She knows Sutton is manipulative, yet everyone paints a picture of her perfection. People don't go looking for missing
Black girls-or half-Black girls-without believing there is an angel to be saved.

When Sutton reappears, Casey knows she should be relieved. Except Sutton isn't the same. She remembers nothing about the time she was gone-or anything from her old life, including how she made Casey miserable. There's something unsettling about the way
she always wants to hang out with Casey and watch her goldfish swim for hours.

What happened to Sutton? The more Casey starts uncovering her sister's secrets, the more questions she has. Did she really know her sister? Why is no one talking about the other girls who have gone missing in their area? And what will it take to uncover the truth?

Editorial Reviews

OCTOBER 2023 - AudioFile

Tamika Katon-Donegal narrates a contemporary YA audiobook with a twist. Sisters Casey and Sutton have a contentious relationship that is fraught with arguments and mutual ill will. After Sutton disappears for weeks, Casey notices that when she returns, her mean-girl personality has changed. Casey soon realizes it isn't an act. Trying to figure out what happened to her sister, Casey discovers connections to others who've recently disappeared. Katon-Donegal's expressive delivery engages listeners as they view the past from one sister's eyes and the present through the other's. Using a dramatic delivery, Katon-Donegal portrays Casey's despair over Sutton's disappearance. She captures the sisters' personalities and maintains interest in the mystery. An entertaining production that will appeal to teens who like a little magic in their realism. A.L.S.M. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

05/01/2023

Biracial (Black and white) teenager Casey attempts to unearth the mysterious circumstances behind her lighter-skinned older sister Sutton’s disappearance and sudden return in Meade’s pulse-pounding supernatural debut. Though Casey and Sutton have never gotten along, she’s devastated when Sutton vanishes. But as her parents and their affluent Seattle community initiate a search and rescue, Casey can’t help but feel that there’s something off. Casey grows even more suspicious when Sutton miraculously returns seeming like a ghost of her former self and claiming no memory of her life beyond Casey. Her investigation into Sutton’s situation brings up two other Black girls in Seattle who have disappeared in recent months. And when Casey’s Black best friend goes missing, Casey and Sutton must work together to save her. Dual POVs alternate between Casey’s present-day voice and Sutton’s, whose chapters chronicle wide-ranging years before her disappearance. Through their developing perspectives, Meade unveils the past between two feuding sisters and how the social politics within their community affected their relationship, weaving a speculative mystery and an ode to sisterhood that confronts systemic injustice alongside issues of colorism and individual and communal identity. Ages 14–up. Agent: Elana Roth Parker, Laura Dail Literary. (June)

From the Publisher

"From its glorious first line to the final page, The Shadow Sister heralds an exciting and exquisite new voice. Lily Meade has arrived!" — Angeline Boulley, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Firekeeper’s Daughter 

"Subtle and eerie" — Youth Services Book Review

"A gripping portrait of fractured sisterhood, reverberating traumas, and the triumphs of omniscient ancestors." — Kirkus Reviews

"Unsettling to an excellent, haunting effect, The Shadow Sister makes the most of tone and atmosphere with prose that seems straightforward at first glance but buzzes with tension." — Booklist, STARRED Review

"A speculative mystery and an ode to sisterhood that confronts systemic injustice alongside issues of colorism and individual and communal identity." — Publisher's Weekly

"The Shadow Sister is a thrilling novel that centers a complicated sisterhood in a mystery about what it takes to uncover the truth from the shadows." — Foreword Reviews, STARRED review

"Suspenseful, thoughtful, and gripping." — School Library Journal

School Library Journal

08/30/2024

Gr 8 Up—"My sister is a bitch, but that doesn't mean I want her dead" begins Meade's narrative of adolescent animosity between sisters—until one goes missing. Casey resents her cheerleader older sister Sutton. The feeling is mutual. When Sutton goes missing and is miraculously found alive, her memory is wiped by trauma and the only person she recalls and reacts to is Casey. Annoyed by this attention, Casey, with the help of her bestie Ruth, asks questions and learns about events prior to the disappearance—such as why Sutton's boyfriend had her jeep, issues with the cheer coach, and that two more young Black women disappeared in the weeks before her sister's abduction. Slowly, the sisters rebuild their relationship with less hostility. Then Ruth goes missing, and Casey risks taking Sutton to the place she was found, hoping it might unlock a memory to help them find Ruth. A horrible truth altered by a metaphysical twist is revealed. Most of the story is from Casey's perspective. Sutton tells her side in some chapters on events going back several years to the day she disappeared. Always in the background is the history of their enslaved ancestors and their grandma's influence on them. Casey and Sutton are biracial Black and white, and Ruth is Black. VERDICT Suspenseful, thoughtful, and gripping, the slow build to the truth creates a story that leaves readers wanting more. A great first purchase.—Tamara Saarinen

Kirkus Reviews

2023-04-12
A biracial high school student questions the truth surrounding her sister’s disappearance and unexplained return.

Sixteen-year-old Cassandra “Casey” Cureton despises her older sister, Sutton. The girls have a White mom and Black dad, and unlike her sister, Casey keeps her hair natural. She prefers the company of best friend Ruth, who is Black, and her online music fandom community. Dedicated cheer captain, flat-iron enthusiast, and rising senior Sutton is a mean girl with a convincingly sweet public persona. When Sutton goes missing on their last day of classes, their parents rally their affluent suburban Seattle-area community to band together and bring Sutton home. Weeks later, she is found physically unharmed but unable to remember anything. While her parents adjust to Sutton’s bittersweet homecoming, Casey realizes there’s something deeply unnerving about the sister who has returned—and it has nothing to do with her amnesia. As Casey races to unmask Sutton’s secrets, she discovers how her paternal family legacy protected Sutton, shedding new light on the powerful bonds of blood. Debut author Meade offers an intriguing, emotionally resonant novel wrapped in supernatural realism. Guided by layered themes of generational inheritance, Black identity, and the reclamation of history, the first-person narrative is told through Casey’s point of view with flashbacks from Sutton. Twists abound, but readers may crave a fuller ending than the action-packed but quick resolution.

A gripping portrait of fractured sisterhood, reverberating traumas, and the triumphs of omniscient ancestors. (author’s note) (Speculative fiction. 14-18)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940178336380
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	06/27/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

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