Review: Thirteen-year old Meg Chalmers couldn't be more different than her older sister Molly if she'd been adopted. Pretty, popular Molly finds it easy to make friends, stay tidy, and dreams of being a wife and mother. Meg can't imagine anything less appealing, and the two girls are often at odds. So when they are forced to share a room together in a small country house, Meg...
more Review: Thirteen-year old Meg Chalmers couldn't be more different than her older sister Molly if she'd been adopted. Pretty, popular Molly finds it easy to make friends, stay tidy, and dreams of being a wife and mother. Meg can't imagine anything less appealing, and the two girls are often at odds. So when they are forced to share a room together in a small country house, Meg and Molly's relationship is strung to the last thread. Then Molly gets sick - really, really sick, and Meg has to deal with this news along with all the complications of growing up.
I've always hated the title of this book because it sounds like it's better suited to a Christopher Pike thriller than to this gentle book about family tragedy and moving through it. I first read this book when I was around eleven, and it's been a favorite ever since; I re-read it every few years. Lowry has great skill at creating very real characters and situations with just a few carefully worded sentences, so that it becomes entirely feasible that a year has passed in only the 100 short pages of the story. What I always loved about this story is that, though the main event of the story is Molly's illness, the story is really about Meg's life, and as a result, the illness is just one part of the year Meg experiences. It doesn't dwell on the sickness, but yet it's always there. I always finish this story feeling nostalgic and introspective, and grateful for life.
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