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The Good Sister
The Kinsey sisters live in an unconventional world. Their parents are former flower-children who still don’t believe in rules. Their small, Northern California town is filled with free spirits and damaged souls seeking refuge from the real world. Without the anchor of authority, the three girls are adrift and have only each other to rely on.
Rachel is wild. Asha is lost. Sarah, the good sister, is the glue that holds them together. But the forces of a mysterious fate have taken Sarah’s life in a sudden and puzzling accident, sending her already fractured family into a tailspin of grief and confusion. Asha has questions. Rachel has secrets. And Sarah, waking up in the afterlife, must piece together how she got there.
Rachel is wild. Asha is lost. Sarah, the good sister, is the glue that holds them together. But the forces of a mysterious fate have taken Sarah’s life in a sudden and puzzling accident, sending her already fractured family into a tailspin of grief and confusion. Asha has questions. Rachel has secrets. And Sarah, waking up in the afterlife, must piece together how she got there.
304 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 7, 2014
22 people are currently reading
1792 people want to read
About the author
Jamie Kain
4 books45 followersJamie Kain grew up in Louisville, Kentucky and has since lived in too many places to count. She now calls Sacramento, California home, where she lives with her husband and three children.
The Good Sister is her debut young adult novel, and it was what you might call a labor of love, which is just a fancy way of saying it took a really long time to write and became something she was pretty obsessed with for a while. Stay tuned for details about her next young adult novel coming in 2015, Instructions for the End of the World.
The Good Sister is her debut young adult novel, and it was what you might call a labor of love, which is just a fancy way of saying it took a really long time to write and became something she was pretty obsessed with for a while. Stay tuned for details about her next young adult novel coming in 2015, Instructions for the End of the World.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 155 reviews
February 25, 2015
This book pulls you in from the first page - my favorite kind of novel! The characters are intriguing, infuriating, and yet lovable. I don't want to give too much away but the psychology of illness and the effect on the family is interesting to watch - the unraveling and the slow coming back together again. A great read!
Bonus: This is a young adult novel NOT about vampires or time-travel.
Bonus: This is a young adult novel NOT about vampires or time-travel.
February 5, 2017
A beautiful gut wrenching tale of 3 very different sisters who have to handle a horrible tragic disaster. A story of sisterly love, betrayal, friendships, first loves and overcoming grief.
December 9, 2015
FIRST THOUGHTS: It's always interesting to witness the many ways sisters are portrayed in fiction, and THE GOOD SISTER is a pretty decent piece. It speaks of three sisters - one who died and two who were left behind - and how everything comes to a head after the tragedy. While I didn't particularly feel for any of the sisters, and while the story didn't provoke anything but the most minimal emotional responses, I thought it was okay.
December 8, 2015
Check out this and other reviews on my young adult book blog, Here's to Happy Endings!
This is one of those books that is written so beautifully and thoughtfully that by the time you finish it, you wonder how this could possibly be Jamie Kain’s debut novel. This book provides the reader with a powerful, thought-provoking experience that will leave you wondering until the very last chapter. The characters are so well-written and developed, and you can tell that a lot of care was put into crafting their personalities and contributions to the story. Even the dialogue between the characters is stunning and enjoyable to read, and it takes readers ever deeper into the story page by page.
Sarah, Rachel, and Asha are sisters, and while they love each other, their relationship has often been strained…and by strained, I’m talking way more unsettled than your typical “sister-drama” kind of relationship. Sarah, the oldest, has spent a lifetime battling cancer, going into remission and then relapsing, and having to go through the pain and suffering all over again. Asha, the youngest, is the sister who has the compatible bone-marrow, so she is able to donate it to Sarah, to help her get well. Rachel, being the middle sister, neither the daughter who is sick or the daughter who can help, is often nudged aside and forgotten, and because of that, she develops a lifetime of bitterness and resentment.
Now, Rachel lives her life by working as a waitress at a diner, going through boyfriends and not taking anything seriously. Asha is becoming a rebel, drinking, getting tattoos, and spending all of her time with her best friend, Sinclair. Their parents are living separate lives now; their father took a new job and rarely ever sees his girls, and their mother has a new boyfriend and a new wardrobe and just about a new everything else.
However, when Sarah dies, Rachel and Asha are all each other has left, along with a bunch of unanswered questions. Did Sarah really fall off that cliff while hiking, or did she jump? What was going through Sarah’s mind during those last few weeks before her death? What was she hiding?
“Life, it turns on a complicated array of gears we cannot see. A heart that beats can go still in the space of a moment. Breath can vanish before we’ve had a chance to say good-bye.”
Sarah, however, wakes up somewhere in the afterlife, and can see the things going on in her former life. She can see her mother and sisters going about their lives. She sees her memorial service. She watches from afar, and wonders where exactly she is. She tries to deal with what has happened, and what is yet to happen, while helplessly watching her family carry on their lives without her.
Without Sarah, the girl who had once held the family together, they all must struggle to stay afloat, and Rachel and Asha try to figure out their lives. When Asha discovers Sarah’s devastating secret, she really begins to wonder if her death was really an accident, or if there was more to it.
This book is as powerful as it is beautiful, as heartwarming as it is heartbreaking. It was a stunning debut novel that tells a story of a sister that might not have been as perfect as everyone once thought. It is one of those books that makes you look at young adult fiction in a whole new light – definitely something different and easy to get lost in.
Don’t even get me started on the amazing character-development that happens in this book, either. While reeling from Sarah’s death, it’s natural that everyone is going to have a difficult time with it, and the different reactions from each character are fully explored and made for a deeper, richer reading experience. The way the characters change from the start of the novel to the end is interesting…if you’re big on this kind of development in a book, instead of just flat characters with no personality, you definitely need to check this one out.
I can’t say enough great things about this book. It had such a mysterious edge to it that kept you guessing about Sarah’s death to the very end, and Sarah’s parts in the novel were a nice touch, as well. It was interesting to read about things from her viewpoint, even though she was in the afterlife.
The Good Sister is definitely one of those rare books that are making it to my “must read again soon!” shelf.
Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
This is one of those books that is written so beautifully and thoughtfully that by the time you finish it, you wonder how this could possibly be Jamie Kain’s debut novel. This book provides the reader with a powerful, thought-provoking experience that will leave you wondering until the very last chapter. The characters are so well-written and developed, and you can tell that a lot of care was put into crafting their personalities and contributions to the story. Even the dialogue between the characters is stunning and enjoyable to read, and it takes readers ever deeper into the story page by page.
Sarah, Rachel, and Asha are sisters, and while they love each other, their relationship has often been strained…and by strained, I’m talking way more unsettled than your typical “sister-drama” kind of relationship. Sarah, the oldest, has spent a lifetime battling cancer, going into remission and then relapsing, and having to go through the pain and suffering all over again. Asha, the youngest, is the sister who has the compatible bone-marrow, so she is able to donate it to Sarah, to help her get well. Rachel, being the middle sister, neither the daughter who is sick or the daughter who can help, is often nudged aside and forgotten, and because of that, she develops a lifetime of bitterness and resentment.
Now, Rachel lives her life by working as a waitress at a diner, going through boyfriends and not taking anything seriously. Asha is becoming a rebel, drinking, getting tattoos, and spending all of her time with her best friend, Sinclair. Their parents are living separate lives now; their father took a new job and rarely ever sees his girls, and their mother has a new boyfriend and a new wardrobe and just about a new everything else.
However, when Sarah dies, Rachel and Asha are all each other has left, along with a bunch of unanswered questions. Did Sarah really fall off that cliff while hiking, or did she jump? What was going through Sarah’s mind during those last few weeks before her death? What was she hiding?
“Life, it turns on a complicated array of gears we cannot see. A heart that beats can go still in the space of a moment. Breath can vanish before we’ve had a chance to say good-bye.”
Sarah, however, wakes up somewhere in the afterlife, and can see the things going on in her former life. She can see her mother and sisters going about their lives. She sees her memorial service. She watches from afar, and wonders where exactly she is. She tries to deal with what has happened, and what is yet to happen, while helplessly watching her family carry on their lives without her.
Without Sarah, the girl who had once held the family together, they all must struggle to stay afloat, and Rachel and Asha try to figure out their lives. When Asha discovers Sarah’s devastating secret, she really begins to wonder if her death was really an accident, or if there was more to it.
This book is as powerful as it is beautiful, as heartwarming as it is heartbreaking. It was a stunning debut novel that tells a story of a sister that might not have been as perfect as everyone once thought. It is one of those books that makes you look at young adult fiction in a whole new light – definitely something different and easy to get lost in.
Don’t even get me started on the amazing character-development that happens in this book, either. While reeling from Sarah’s death, it’s natural that everyone is going to have a difficult time with it, and the different reactions from each character are fully explored and made for a deeper, richer reading experience. The way the characters change from the start of the novel to the end is interesting…if you’re big on this kind of development in a book, instead of just flat characters with no personality, you definitely need to check this one out.
I can’t say enough great things about this book. It had such a mysterious edge to it that kept you guessing about Sarah’s death to the very end, and Sarah’s parts in the novel were a nice touch, as well. It was interesting to read about things from her viewpoint, even though she was in the afterlife.
The Good Sister is definitely one of those rare books that are making it to my “must read again soon!” shelf.
Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Read
November 11, 2014This isn't a contemporary realistic YA book, unless characters who are dead and wandering something similar to purgatory and having a voice in the story are now that. This is a light fantasy novel in the same vein that IF I STAY or ELSEWHERE are.
Sarah, Asha, and Rachel are sisters. But their relationship isn't nor has it ever been particularly harmonious. When Sarah dies after going for a hike with Rachel, things get further strained between Asha and Rachel. Asha, because she and Sarah were close, and Rachel because she feels pushed further out of the family, never having been super close to either and never feeling like she could gain a foothold with a sister relationship. She was jealous, and worse, she was there when Sarah fell, if she fell at all. And more, Rachel knew all of Sarah's secrets.
The novel slowly unwraps all of the relationships and the ties between and among the girls, as well as the relationships they had with their hippie mother (who is a wretched character) and various boys. While the writing is nice and tight, the story itself becomes unwieldy. It felt like too many "things" got introduced too late into the story for them to ever be fully developed. For a very long time, Sarah is "the good sister," and even in her own narration, she gives off an air of being all-knowing because she's dead. This DOES change, but not necessarily for the better.
Not one of these characters is great, and Kain has a knack for making them believably flawed and ugly. But what didn't work was
It didn't feel like this tread a lot of new ground, and at times, I was tempted to just stop because it was slow to make reveals...and then those reveals weren't particularly satisfying. In a lot of ways, it felt like a YA book for grown ups, instead of a YA book for teens. Despite tackling tougher issues, it never felt gritty or dirty or messy, but manufactured, packaged, and too-neatly wrapped up.
Also, this cover is terrible for the book. It gives off a different tone than the story, which is darker than you'd be led to believe by it.
Sarah, Asha, and Rachel are sisters. But their relationship isn't nor has it ever been particularly harmonious. When Sarah dies after going for a hike with Rachel, things get further strained between Asha and Rachel. Asha, because she and Sarah were close, and Rachel because she feels pushed further out of the family, never having been super close to either and never feeling like she could gain a foothold with a sister relationship. She was jealous, and worse, she was there when Sarah fell, if she fell at all. And more, Rachel knew all of Sarah's secrets.
The novel slowly unwraps all of the relationships and the ties between and among the girls, as well as the relationships they had with their hippie mother (who is a wretched character) and various boys. While the writing is nice and tight, the story itself becomes unwieldy. It felt like too many "things" got introduced too late into the story for them to ever be fully developed. For a very long time, Sarah is "the good sister," and even in her own narration, she gives off an air of being all-knowing because she's dead. This DOES change, but not necessarily for the better.
Not one of these characters is great, and Kain has a knack for making them believably flawed and ugly. But what didn't work was
It didn't feel like this tread a lot of new ground, and at times, I was tempted to just stop because it was slow to make reveals...and then those reveals weren't particularly satisfying. In a lot of ways, it felt like a YA book for grown ups, instead of a YA book for teens. Despite tackling tougher issues, it never felt gritty or dirty or messy, but manufactured, packaged, and too-neatly wrapped up.
Also, this cover is terrible for the book. It gives off a different tone than the story, which is darker than you'd be led to believe by it.
June 1, 2019
This one I borrowed from daughter and really have to say she has great taste in books. Here is an example of what is said on the back of this book explaining what it is about and usually I don't write reviews like this but I loved what it says on the book though...
"Rachel is wild. Asus is lost. Sarah, the good sister, is the glue that holds them together. But the forces of a mysterious gate have taken Sarah's life in a sudden and puzzling accident, sending her already fractured family into a tailspin of grief and confusion. Asus has questions. Rachel has secrets. And Sarah, waking up in the afterlife, must piece together how she got there."
Now that you have that information good luck in solving it all wish you luck and hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did...
"Rachel is wild. Asus is lost. Sarah, the good sister, is the glue that holds them together. But the forces of a mysterious gate have taken Sarah's life in a sudden and puzzling accident, sending her already fractured family into a tailspin of grief and confusion. Asus has questions. Rachel has secrets. And Sarah, waking up in the afterlife, must piece together how she got there."
Now that you have that information good luck in solving it all wish you luck and hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did...
July 5, 2014
http://anurseandabook.blogspot.com/20...
I come from a family of four sisters, so I know the love, jealousy, hate, loyalty and all encompassing relationship you can only have with a sister. This is one of the few books that I have ever read that completely nails that bond.
The book begins with Sarah's death, and her view is a huge part of the story. It felt reminiscent of The Lovely Bones, with her narrative woven throughout the story of her sisters trying to deal with the aftermath of losing her. Asha and Rachel are basically raising themselves, left alone by a pseudo-hippie mother, who is really just too self-involved to parent, and a dad who has moved on to a child free life.
I don't want to give away any spoilers, because I feel like this is a book that needs to be experienced by each person. Maybe it won't strike others as deeply as it did me, but I think it will have an impact on anyone who has a sister.
The writing is so descriptive of the feelings that the girls invoke in each other, "She has a crazy way of doing that. I've never figured out what her game is, or where she gets her nerve, but she is an energy vortex. When she's near, I feel like I need to go take a nap.....I want her to stop sucking the energy out of me......But I can still feel her there, sucking, sucking, sucking.".
The story is intriguing, the writing is beautiful, I cared about the characters and their story. There was no happy ending, just a broken family learning to move forward.
As Asha said, "She is everything I have ever known about love, and she's taught me how to know this feeling now." That is what a sister is to me too.
I loved this book, and it's one of the few I willingly give 5 stars. I can't wait to see the author's next book.
I was given a free ARC from NetGalley in return for an honest review - and I only give honest reviews.
I come from a family of four sisters, so I know the love, jealousy, hate, loyalty and all encompassing relationship you can only have with a sister. This is one of the few books that I have ever read that completely nails that bond.
The book begins with Sarah's death, and her view is a huge part of the story. It felt reminiscent of The Lovely Bones, with her narrative woven throughout the story of her sisters trying to deal with the aftermath of losing her. Asha and Rachel are basically raising themselves, left alone by a pseudo-hippie mother, who is really just too self-involved to parent, and a dad who has moved on to a child free life.
I don't want to give away any spoilers, because I feel like this is a book that needs to be experienced by each person. Maybe it won't strike others as deeply as it did me, but I think it will have an impact on anyone who has a sister.
The writing is so descriptive of the feelings that the girls invoke in each other, "She has a crazy way of doing that. I've never figured out what her game is, or where she gets her nerve, but she is an energy vortex. When she's near, I feel like I need to go take a nap.....I want her to stop sucking the energy out of me......But I can still feel her there, sucking, sucking, sucking.".
The story is intriguing, the writing is beautiful, I cared about the characters and their story. There was no happy ending, just a broken family learning to move forward.
As Asha said, "She is everything I have ever known about love, and she's taught me how to know this feeling now." That is what a sister is to me too.
I loved this book, and it's one of the few I willingly give 5 stars. I can't wait to see the author's next book.
I was given a free ARC from NetGalley in return for an honest review - and I only give honest reviews.
August 22, 2014
It has been a while since a book has grabbed and held my attention from the first few lines. The Good Sister did just that - it hooked me with the murder mystery and the unraveling sisterhood kept me glued to the book.
Sarah is dead and it wasn't the way anyone thought she would go. Sarah is a 2x cancer survivor, so her family was "prepared" for her death, but no one expected she would fall off a cliff. From the first few lines, you are hooked; you know Sarah just didn't fall - but, you don't know how she fell either.
As a preteen Sarah was diagnosed with cancer; cancer took its tole on Sarah as well as her family, one sister became the hero and one sister was pushed aside. After years of living with those "titles" and the roles they played, they can't cope with Sarah's death. They don't know how. Asha the youngest sister the "hero" sister can not fathom "the whys", non of this makes sense to her. She wants answers and she is going to get them no matter who she hurts. Rachel the middle sister who couldn't save Sarah's life and was forgotten, has her own issues and she wonders how much of the problems she caused led to Sarah's death.
Loved loved loved this book. I have a sister and I have 3 daughters - so I know how the relationships between sisters can be love/hate and how no matter what you do truly love each other. To dive into the middle of these sisters and learn all the great and horrible things they did for and to each other was like watching a soap opera. It kept me glued to this story line... I couldn't get enough. This definitely made my up all night list.
http://www.pageturnersblog.com/2014/0...
Sarah is dead and it wasn't the way anyone thought she would go. Sarah is a 2x cancer survivor, so her family was "prepared" for her death, but no one expected she would fall off a cliff. From the first few lines, you are hooked; you know Sarah just didn't fall - but, you don't know how she fell either.
As a preteen Sarah was diagnosed with cancer; cancer took its tole on Sarah as well as her family, one sister became the hero and one sister was pushed aside. After years of living with those "titles" and the roles they played, they can't cope with Sarah's death. They don't know how. Asha the youngest sister the "hero" sister can not fathom "the whys", non of this makes sense to her. She wants answers and she is going to get them no matter who she hurts. Rachel the middle sister who couldn't save Sarah's life and was forgotten, has her own issues and she wonders how much of the problems she caused led to Sarah's death.
Loved loved loved this book. I have a sister and I have 3 daughters - so I know how the relationships between sisters can be love/hate and how no matter what you do truly love each other. To dive into the middle of these sisters and learn all the great and horrible things they did for and to each other was like watching a soap opera. It kept me glued to this story line... I couldn't get enough. This definitely made my up all night list.
http://www.pageturnersblog.com/2014/0...
November 6, 2014
Think . . . The Fault in Her Stars meets The Lovely Bones, only Sarah’s leukemia is in remission and she knows who is responsible for her death. The Good Sister is a fast-paced young adult novel, clean enough for teenagers with enough skin in the game for adults.
Sarah, the oldest of the Kinsey sisters, draws us into her purgatory world in the opening chapter. We understand from the start, there is more to her death than meets the eye. Did Sarah fall to her death on the rocky coast, or did someone push her? Only one other person knows what happened to Sarah on the trail high above the Pacific Ocean, and she’s not talking.
Rachel, the middle sister, and Asha, the baby, take turns with Sarah, telling the story of their lives, sharing their feelings for one another and their experiences growing up with hippie parents in a carefree lifestyle. Pieces of the puzzle come together and we learn of the shocking events that led to Sarah’s death.
The Good Sister offers strong elements of both character and plot. Writing from alternating first-person points of view is a difficult task, especially when the protagonists are of the same sex, close in age, from similar backgrounds. This debut author handles the challenge with well-defined characters. Once or twice, I got confused and had to revert to the chapter heading, but for the most part, the sisters held me grounded in their own painful stories as they struggle to survive their grief, as they learned to cope in a life without the good sister.
3.5 reviews for me
For more of my reviews, visit my website at www.chroniclesofavidreader.com
Sarah, the oldest of the Kinsey sisters, draws us into her purgatory world in the opening chapter. We understand from the start, there is more to her death than meets the eye. Did Sarah fall to her death on the rocky coast, or did someone push her? Only one other person knows what happened to Sarah on the trail high above the Pacific Ocean, and she’s not talking.
Rachel, the middle sister, and Asha, the baby, take turns with Sarah, telling the story of their lives, sharing their feelings for one another and their experiences growing up with hippie parents in a carefree lifestyle. Pieces of the puzzle come together and we learn of the shocking events that led to Sarah’s death.
The Good Sister offers strong elements of both character and plot. Writing from alternating first-person points of view is a difficult task, especially when the protagonists are of the same sex, close in age, from similar backgrounds. This debut author handles the challenge with well-defined characters. Once or twice, I got confused and had to revert to the chapter heading, but for the most part, the sisters held me grounded in their own painful stories as they struggle to survive their grief, as they learned to cope in a life without the good sister.
3.5 reviews for me
For more of my reviews, visit my website at www.chroniclesofavidreader.com
December 23, 2015
This novel was beyond awful. Asha and Rachel have lost their sister Sarah who had battled leukemia for most of her life, but died when she went hiking and fell off a cliff into the ocean. Long story short, these girls both dislike their sister and speak so harshly about her. Asha honors her sister's memory by getting a tattoo (she's only 15), drinking with her BFF, and then being late to the funeral and staggering in completely drunk. Rachel flat out hates Sarah for getting leukemia and stealing everyone's attention. She regularly calls Sarah "Ms. Goody-Two-Shoes" and says she was "perfect". It sickened me that these two girls felt no remorse or care for their dead sister, especially since one of them caused the sister to commit suicide. And along with hating Sarah, they both hated each other. The end.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 13, 2015
I could not get into this book at all. It just didn't grab my attention and I had to force myself to try to keep reading which is not what you want in a book. Sarah's PoV was very weird and the other two sisters had no character depth in my opinion.
The plot was basically the two sisters rebelling and complaining about how their life sucks cause their sister died and the other sister sucks and their parents are the worst and blah blah blah. It just was really kind of boring to me so I didn't finish the book.
Overall I do not recommend this book as it didn't grab my attention and was pretty boring.
Until the next horrible book I read, it's kind of obvious why you shouldn't sleep with your best friends brother... The rules are pretty clear there
The plot was basically the two sisters rebelling and complaining about how their life sucks cause their sister died and the other sister sucks and their parents are the worst and blah blah blah. It just was really kind of boring to me so I didn't finish the book.
Overall I do not recommend this book as it didn't grab my attention and was pretty boring.
Until the next horrible book I read, it's kind of obvious why you shouldn't sleep with your best friends brother... The rules are pretty clear there
September 2, 2017
There's a moment in this book where one of the characters mentions she's reading the Faulkner classic As I Lay Dying for school, and she mentions, too, the awful characters. A frankly hilarious moment, since that's exactly what this book suffers from: a glut of selfish, callous, ridiculous characters you would want nothing to do with in real life. They were all, at turns, careless and cruel to themselves, to each other, and to those around them. I didn't like any of them, and couldn't connect with any of them. So I didn't care at all about the situations in which they found themselves.
I was glad when this book came to an end.
I was glad when this book came to an end.
October 3, 2014
This is a book about secrets and family. The oldest sister of three, Sarah, dies unexpectedly. The middle sister and the youngest sister (not to mention her estranged parents) have to pick up the pieces and move forward. Of course, secrets are revealed and relationships are strengthened, etc. It's a good read, but I was frustrated with the abundance angsty-teen narration. Lots of melodrama.
August 18, 2014
The first few chapters did pull me in...but halfway through, I started losing interest. The living sisters were just so screwed up that it was very difficult to empathize with them. There was no great storyline and even the mystery was very lackluster.
October 12, 2020
Jamie Kain delivers a poignant, stirring story in her much-anticipated debut YA novel. Beautifully written, the storyline keeps the reader on the seat's edge throughout. Put this on your must-read list!
August 18, 2016
Real good
June 11, 2018
I can't decide what I think of this book. There are SOO many topics in this book: death, terminal illness, drugs, underage drinking, drunk driving, cross dressers, language, degradation, women as an object, suicide, suicide attempts, messed up parenting, teenage sex discussions, very brief violence, and probably more. But it also covers: teenage depression, anxiety, 'where do I fit in' issues, learning to cope with surroundings, determining self value, making positive/negative choices, family issues, and again, probably more. So, do I like this book? If I would have read it on my own, I possibly would have enjoyed it more than I did. But since I read it when my child told me that "mom, I don't think this is a good book for me" I think I had a clouded vision of it and spent the entire time trying to read it through my kids eyes. I kept thinking as I read it, 'is this appropriate young adult reading material??' (For kids on the young end of young adult). And I guess that's the age old question.
The biggest thing that I appreciated with this book is that it is giving me something to think about and research in regards to censorship and books and children. So many topics my kids need to learn and be aware of but at what point should they be exposed to them in writing??? Is that for me to even decide?? After all, my daughter knew for herself that she wasn't ready for it....
The biggest thing that I appreciated with this book is that it is giving me something to think about and research in regards to censorship and books and children. So many topics my kids need to learn and be aware of but at what point should they be exposed to them in writing??? Is that for me to even decide?? After all, my daughter knew for herself that she wasn't ready for it....
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 27, 2017
3.5 stars. I was happily impressed with this book. And it goes to show that how others rate books plays into how i see them. I grabbed this book on a whim and when I added it to my reading category, i saw it wasn't rated as highly as many books I usually read. Which means i didn't have super-high hopes for it. But it was pleasantly thought-out, emotionally pretty well developed, and had a couple twists i didn't see coming. I have known sisters who function a lot like this set and I've known families who have survived cancer only to have it be like a bomb that went off and now they struggle to pick up the pieces. I do think the author accurately portrayed that aspect. And the story was just enough to not get bored or feel it was under-done. In the beginning, I had a hard time telling Asha and Rachel apart (their voices). But it was a decent read.
April 15, 2019
Wouldn't Recommend
This is a mixed review on account of this book is quite literally 50/50 over dramatized, shock writing and profound sentiment. The cause and effect of the plot itself is pretty... understandably escalated, but irrational to me, making it difficult to read. Really poor dialogue and characterization in my opinion, and I don't know if I would classify this as a young adult novel, (which I feel I can say, studying young adult fiction) not for the subject matter, but how it was written/crafted. Too redundant in sentiment and way too much interiority. Finally, not that there's anything wrong with self-published books, but this one seemed to be, due to the presence of too many typos and line of continuity errors I couldn't get around. Overall, not really a fan, but I took lessons away for my own writing so I can't complain.
This is a mixed review on account of this book is quite literally 50/50 over dramatized, shock writing and profound sentiment. The cause and effect of the plot itself is pretty... understandably escalated, but irrational to me, making it difficult to read. Really poor dialogue and characterization in my opinion, and I don't know if I would classify this as a young adult novel, (which I feel I can say, studying young adult fiction) not for the subject matter, but how it was written/crafted. Too redundant in sentiment and way too much interiority. Finally, not that there's anything wrong with self-published books, but this one seemed to be, due to the presence of too many typos and line of continuity errors I couldn't get around. Overall, not really a fan, but I took lessons away for my own writing so I can't complain.
February 9, 2020
This book was pretty good. If you don't like sad books about someone dying or other people in tough relationships, this is not the book for you. But if you can handle some strong language, tough relationships, and someone dying then this is the book for you. I do have to say most of it is interesting and it did take me awhile to finish however most of the time I finish books pretty fast depending on how long the book is.
The summary is about three sisters: Rachel, Sarah, and Asha. Sarah battles a relapse of leukemia and eventually can't make it anymore. The other two sisters are devastated causing the parents to separate making the sister's lives even harder. Losing a sibling is hard and not easy. In some context, this book is for mature readers so if you can't handle slight talk about sex, please do not feel obliged to read this book as it is meant for teenagers.
The summary is about three sisters: Rachel, Sarah, and Asha. Sarah battles a relapse of leukemia and eventually can't make it anymore. The other two sisters are devastated causing the parents to separate making the sister's lives even harder. Losing a sibling is hard and not easy. In some context, this book is for mature readers so if you can't handle slight talk about sex, please do not feel obliged to read this book as it is meant for teenagers.
April 1, 2021
Three sisters born to former commune dwelling hippes, now separated. The oldest has had leukemia, twice. The youngest is a match to be a bone marrow donor. Where does that leave the middle child? The youngest is belovedly useful. The oldest is belovedly sick and in need of care. What about the middle girl? How does this impact the sibling relationships?
Such is the situation for the girls in The Good Sister, a heartbreaking account of how serious illness in a family impacts that family's bonds. Absolutely captivating, this young adult novel spares no punches in delving into these ties that bind...or are supposed to.
Such is the situation for the girls in The Good Sister, a heartbreaking account of how serious illness in a family impacts that family's bonds. Absolutely captivating, this young adult novel spares no punches in delving into these ties that bind...or are supposed to.
August 16, 2017
I have to say that I picked this book up because of the cover and title, and I was expecting something silly about sisters but I was wrong. I just finish the book and I couldn't stop reading it, I wanted to know more about Sarah, Asha and Rachel. Jamie did a great job writing about all three sisters. It was a story that you can imagine and see yourself there with them as you read. Love it the book and I will just read it again because it was great for me.
February 14, 2020
This was a really interesting way to talk about death, coping with it and in a roundabout way, suicide.
I liked that we got all three POVs are told as the story and secrets are told. Sometimes something tragic has to happen for positive changes to take hold in your life and unfortunately Sarah's death was exactly what everyone needed for this family to put being to fix what was broken and start heeling together.
I liked that we got all three POVs are told as the story and secrets are told. Sometimes something tragic has to happen for positive changes to take hold in your life and unfortunately Sarah's death was exactly what everyone needed for this family to put being to fix what was broken and start heeling together.
October 22, 2014
4.25 stars
The Good Sister was one of my most pleasant surprises of 2014. Obviously I found the idea of the story interesting, otherwise I wouldn't have picked it up, but I never expected to as taken in by the story as I was and to count it among one of my favorite books of 2014. Before I picked up the book the whole hippie family and the dead-sister perspective gave me pause, but the way that Jamie Kain handled those two parts of the story, and the rest of the story, was so impressive, especially for a debut author.
The official description of this book is kind of awful and misleading and really sells the story short. At the beginning of the story Sarah, the "good" sister is dead and no one quite knows what happened. Sarah had been sick for much of her teenage life with cancer, but she was finally healthy and everyone thought she was going to live a healthy, successful life as the golden child. Her death is tough on her entire family, her former hippie parents are now divorced and have pretty much sold out and did a 180-degree turn to fancy, corporate lives, but Sarah's death is especially hard on her two sisters, Rachel and Asha. Hands down the biggest surprise of the book was how the sisters just didn't get along. Sarah and Asha had been close, Asha had given Sarah a bone marrow transfusion years before and that experience bonded them, but they had grown apart towards the end of Sarah's life. Rachel is difficult, as Rachel, Asha, and Sarah all acknowledge, and she never really bonded or got along with either of sisters. The story is told from the perspectives of all three sisters, Sarah from beyond the grave, and is really about fixing the sisters as individuals and their entire family.
Rachel was probably the most complicated character in the book, and there were lots of complicated characters, and also maybe the most damaged, and again there were lots of damaged characters here. Rachel graduated high school a semester early and now she walks at a coffee shop in their hometown outside of San Francisco. Sadly Rachel spends most of her time searching for attention she never got from her parents or from her sisters and to find it she looks to guys, more often than not guys she shouldn't be dating including Sarah's former boyfriend, a guy Asha thinks is a drug dealer, and a Buddhist monk. It's when Rachel meets the Buddhist monk, a guy just a few years older than she is, that she starts to think she can change her life. Rachel was with Sarah the day she died and she blames herself for Sarah's death. When she meets the monk she tries to seduce him, but he is steadfast in his celibacy and really just tries to show Rachel that she deserves happiness and is worthy of allowing good people to love and care about her.
Asha was another complicated and damaged character. She's the youngest sister, still in high school, and even though she says and does thing beyond her years she's still very much a child. Asha often skips school, spends her nights sleeping in a local park, and abuses drugs and alcohol. At the start of the book she's trying to seduce her guy best friend's older brother, but after her best friend gets angry at her about his brother she begins to think her best friend might have feelings for her. Even though her actions are often those of someone older her thought processes and her reaction to thinks were fairly young and I often wanted to just wrap Asha up and take care of her.
The sister that worried me the most going in was Sarah, I don't normally read books from the perspective of dead characters, but I was immediately struck by how normal Sarah seemed. The way the story is told Sarah also doesn't quite know what happened to lead her to her death so she's uncovering the story the same way that Asha and Rachel are uncovering the story. Towards the end of the book Sarah's voice did get a little cheesy and dramatic, but for the most part I was impressed by it.
If I had one criticism of the book it would be that Jamie Kain tried to do too much. It's a very full, complicated, layered story and there were times things didn't feel fleshed out enough or moments when a new character or situation would just appear, like Rachel's drug dealer boyfriend who literally isn't mentioned for more than half the book and then is suddenly in two or so scenes. In the acknowledgments, which were at the beginning of the book (which I hate) Kain talked about how she worked on the book for a while and had so many ideas she had to narrow down and sometimes the story really felt like that was the case.
Bottom Line: The Good Sister is one of my favorite books of 2014 and certainly one of the most impressive debuts I've read. The characters are flawed and the situations are complicated, but Jamie Kain handles both of those beautifully. I wanted to keep living in the Kinsey sisters' world, it was so interesting and well done and I just felt like I knew the sisters and loved and cared about them, faults and all. This is a must-read that I hope more people will be picking up.
I received an electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley (thank you!). All opinions are my own.
This review first appeared on my blog.
The Good Sister was one of my most pleasant surprises of 2014. Obviously I found the idea of the story interesting, otherwise I wouldn't have picked it up, but I never expected to as taken in by the story as I was and to count it among one of my favorite books of 2014. Before I picked up the book the whole hippie family and the dead-sister perspective gave me pause, but the way that Jamie Kain handled those two parts of the story, and the rest of the story, was so impressive, especially for a debut author.
The official description of this book is kind of awful and misleading and really sells the story short. At the beginning of the story Sarah, the "good" sister is dead and no one quite knows what happened. Sarah had been sick for much of her teenage life with cancer, but she was finally healthy and everyone thought she was going to live a healthy, successful life as the golden child. Her death is tough on her entire family, her former hippie parents are now divorced and have pretty much sold out and did a 180-degree turn to fancy, corporate lives, but Sarah's death is especially hard on her two sisters, Rachel and Asha. Hands down the biggest surprise of the book was how the sisters just didn't get along. Sarah and Asha had been close, Asha had given Sarah a bone marrow transfusion years before and that experience bonded them, but they had grown apart towards the end of Sarah's life. Rachel is difficult, as Rachel, Asha, and Sarah all acknowledge, and she never really bonded or got along with either of sisters. The story is told from the perspectives of all three sisters, Sarah from beyond the grave, and is really about fixing the sisters as individuals and their entire family.
Rachel was probably the most complicated character in the book, and there were lots of complicated characters, and also maybe the most damaged, and again there were lots of damaged characters here. Rachel graduated high school a semester early and now she walks at a coffee shop in their hometown outside of San Francisco. Sadly Rachel spends most of her time searching for attention she never got from her parents or from her sisters and to find it she looks to guys, more often than not guys she shouldn't be dating including Sarah's former boyfriend, a guy Asha thinks is a drug dealer, and a Buddhist monk. It's when Rachel meets the Buddhist monk, a guy just a few years older than she is, that she starts to think she can change her life. Rachel was with Sarah the day she died and she blames herself for Sarah's death. When she meets the monk she tries to seduce him, but he is steadfast in his celibacy and really just tries to show Rachel that she deserves happiness and is worthy of allowing good people to love and care about her.
Asha was another complicated and damaged character. She's the youngest sister, still in high school, and even though she says and does thing beyond her years she's still very much a child. Asha often skips school, spends her nights sleeping in a local park, and abuses drugs and alcohol. At the start of the book she's trying to seduce her guy best friend's older brother, but after her best friend gets angry at her about his brother she begins to think her best friend might have feelings for her. Even though her actions are often those of someone older her thought processes and her reaction to thinks were fairly young and I often wanted to just wrap Asha up and take care of her.
The sister that worried me the most going in was Sarah, I don't normally read books from the perspective of dead characters, but I was immediately struck by how normal Sarah seemed. The way the story is told Sarah also doesn't quite know what happened to lead her to her death so she's uncovering the story the same way that Asha and Rachel are uncovering the story. Towards the end of the book Sarah's voice did get a little cheesy and dramatic, but for the most part I was impressed by it.
If I had one criticism of the book it would be that Jamie Kain tried to do too much. It's a very full, complicated, layered story and there were times things didn't feel fleshed out enough or moments when a new character or situation would just appear, like Rachel's drug dealer boyfriend who literally isn't mentioned for more than half the book and then is suddenly in two or so scenes. In the acknowledgments, which were at the beginning of the book (which I hate) Kain talked about how she worked on the book for a while and had so many ideas she had to narrow down and sometimes the story really felt like that was the case.
Bottom Line: The Good Sister is one of my favorite books of 2014 and certainly one of the most impressive debuts I've read. The characters are flawed and the situations are complicated, but Jamie Kain handles both of those beautifully. I wanted to keep living in the Kinsey sisters' world, it was so interesting and well done and I just felt like I knew the sisters and loved and cared about them, faults and all. This is a must-read that I hope more people will be picking up.
I received an electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley (thank you!). All opinions are my own.
This review first appeared on my blog.
August 17, 2025
The story itself is not necessarily original, but the pacing was good and the different perspectives of the sisters were interesting. The parents/grandmother and the limited backstory on that was cliche (horrible rich grandmother, hippie yet materialistic mother, dad who basically abandoned them)… it didn’t add anything to the story of the sisters in my opinion.
June 5, 2017
There was a lot of really good points about grief, and how people are remembered. Overall, I really enjoyed this. A subplot about gender identity and sexuality was definitely kind of mishandled, so be aware of that as well. Trigger warning for suicide, and suicide attempts.
September 10, 2019
After closing this book, I sat still for 20 minutes straight thinking about the emotional journey this book put me through. I was happy. I was (mostly) infuriated. I was incredibly sad. At the end, I feel fortunate to have discovered this book.
It’s a great read.
It’s a great read.
April 28, 2020
The Characters lives in this book was a total train wreck and I LOVED It.
All the drama and totally wasnt predictable. Most books and movies are predictable for me but I was pleasantly surprised.
All the drama and totally wasnt predictable. Most books and movies are predictable for me but I was pleasantly surprised.
October 20, 2020
It is a very good book, the book was not at all of what I thought it was going to be about. I thought the book was going to be about the what the role of a good sister is, instead it is about a death is so mysterious that it might break a family apart even though they already lose a daughter.
April 9, 2022
This book was actually a lot better than I expected. The plot twists towards the end weren’t jaw dropping and they were kind of expected but I still absolutely loved them. I loved the character development and how well the author portrayed these characters.
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