Then I Met My Sister

Then I Met My Sister
Author: Christine Hurley Deriso
pages: 269
publication date: April 8 2011






Summary:
Shannon has been the backdrop of my life since the moment I was born.

Summer Stetson lives inside a shrine to her dead sister. Eclipsed by Shannon's greatness, Summer feels like she's a constant disappointment to her controlling, Type A momzilla and her all-too-quiet dad. Her best friend Gibson believes Summer's C average has more to do with rebelliousness than smarts, but she knows she can never measure up—academically or otherwise.

On her birthday, Summer receives a secret gift from her aunt: Shannon's diary. Suddenly, the one-dimensional vision of her sister becomes all too solid. Is this love-struck, mom-bashing badass the same Shannon everyone raves about? Determined to understand her troubled sister, Summer dives headfirst down a dark rabbit hole and unearths painful family secrets. Each revelation brings Summer closer to the mysterious and liberating truth about her family—and herself.




Review:

I ordered this book from the library just for its cover, I marked it on my to-read pile a long time ago but never really read the synopsis of it until closer to when it came out, this cover is one of the most beautiful covers I have seen in a long time.

Summer was born after her 17 year old sister died, ever since she was little she felt like nothing, everyone would say how great and beautiful Shannon was but they never really paid attention to Summer.

On summer’s birthday, her aunt hands her a book, Shannon’s diary to be exact. She didn’t want to read it, didn’t want to read about how perfect and nice Shannon’s life was.  Until she actually starts reading it, and finds out the truth about who Shannon really was.

I loved this story, for one there was Gibs, Gibs is such a sweet guy, and definitely cute, he helped Summer through a lot and Gibs saw the real Summer, not the shadow of her sister. I hate when characters don’t see the obvious crush that the other has on them, she was so oblivious and in her own self-pitying world that she didn’t see what was right in front of her.

The only thing I didn’t like about this book was summer’s attitude towards the whole situation. Throughout the whole book all she would do is pity herself, “oh I’ll never be like Shannon” “oh poor me”.  I don’t like characters that pity themselves and make it all about them.

Gibs was there for her the whole time, whatever she asked he did, whatever crazy idea she had he would go along with. Until Gibs wanted to talk about something else besides Summer’s dead sister, that’s all Summer talked about, she was obsessed!

I’m glad that everything turned out all right in the end, everything came together nice and her mom changed, Summer changed, the whole family did a complete turnaround. I did enjoy reading this book and I hope to read more of Christine’s books in the future.

4/5 stars