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Book: “The Shadow Sister” by Lily Mead
Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, June 2023
Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher at ALAAC23.
Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound
Book Description: Sutton going missing is the worst thing to happen to Casey, to their family. She’s trying to help find her sister, but Casey is furious. And she can’t tell anyone about their argument before Sutton disappeared. Everyone paints a picture of Sutton’s perfection: the popular cheerleader with an entourage of friends, a doting boyfriend, and a limitless future. But Sutton manipulated everyone around her, even stole an heirloom bracelet from Casey. People don’t look 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 while she was gone—or anything from her old life, including how she made Casey miserable. There’s something unsettling about the way she wants to spend time with Casey, the way she hums and watches 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?
Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for giving me an ARC of this novel and to Lily Meade for signing it!
Back in June, nearing the end of the second to last day at ALAAC23, I was dragging my bag of books et al around, waiting in line for a signing with Darcy Coates. Someone asked me if it was the Lily Meade line, and I, unaware, said ‘no’. But then I was informed that it was, as it was a dual signing, and I just thought to myself ‘ah, okay, bonus book, cool’. But when I was handed “The Shadow Sister”, Lily Meade’s debut thriller novel, the cover caught my eye. And then the description did as well. This bonus book seemed like it was going to not only be a fun additional book, but one that was squarely in my genre interests. When I did sit down to read it, I was hooked almost immediately.
I really enjoyed the narrative construction in this novel, told from present day Casey’s perspective and past Sutton’s perspective (which jumps around in time leading up to the moment she went missing). It allows us to get some insights into how the mystery is being built and pursued on Casey’s end as Sutton returns and isn’t acting like herself, while also giving us a different perspective that sheds light and changes the perceptions of the mystery as it unfolds. There is an eerie unease that builds as we know that SOMETHING isn’t right with Sutton, be it the trauma she endured and the fallout, or whether there is something else at work on top of that. The pacing works well as strange, but maybe(?) plausible things are happening, while Casey is convinced that this Sutton has something very, very wrong with her. And therein the reader also wonders what exactly it is. There are some genuinely well done surprises and twists in this story as well, some I didn’t see coming at all and landed perfectly. Meade carefully and deliberately lays out clues and misdirections and information throughout, things that you think could be significant towards one aspect of the story but then end up being significant towards another one, and it made for a lot of really fun, sometimes devastating, shocks.
But it’s the characters and the greater themes of intergenerational trauma and strife, as well as small town hypocrisy, and racism, that really makes for the really strong pillars of this book. We find out quickly that Sutton and Casey are from a biracial family, with their father’s side descended from enslaved people that has been meticulously mapped due to his personal interest and place in academia, as well as a robust passing down of family stories through the years. This family history is a crucial part of the story, partially because some of the sisterly strife between Sutton and Casey has to do with disagreements over a bracelet that was left by their now deceased grandmother, who was an inspiration and a woman whose stories connected them to their family’s past of tragedy and triumphs of living through slavery and finding reconciliation against the odds. There is also the greater themes of racism in America, as this small town community that feels and seems close knit, harbors a lot of jarring realities, namely the lack of awareness or urgency when Black girls go missing. Just to name a few.
“The Shadow Sister” is a stunning debut, and I am very much looking forward to whatever Lily Meade has in store next. Check this one out!
Rating 8: Tense, mysterious, and emotionally charged, “The Shadow Sister” is a thriller with a genre twist that explores intergenerational trauma, sisters, and small town secrets.
Reader’s Advisory:
“The Shadow Sister” is included on the Goodreads lists “2023 YA Mysteries And Thrillers”, and “YA Horror 2023”.
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