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Dear Sister
Julie can’t wait to meet her long lost twin, Joanna. But Joanna wants to be more than just a sister. She wants Julie all to herself. She wants to share everything Julie has: her clothes, her friends—her life!
Then Julie’s friends start dying. Is Joanna finally getting her way?
Then Julie’s friends start dying. Is Joanna finally getting her way?
- GenresThriller
193 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 29, 2016
19 people want to read
About the author
John Hall
7 books9 followersAs a teenager, John Hall devoured a diet of classic horror movies such as Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Some of his more recent favorite horror movies are the Scream and Saw franchises. When he began reading adult horror, his instant favorites were Stephen King, John Saul and Dean Koontz. Most recently he's a fan of dark suspense authors such as Gillian Flynn, Ruth Ware, Shari Lapena, B.A. Paris, A.J. Finn, Liv Constantine and Lisa Jackson. John Hall's novels will appeal to fans of Karen McManus, E. Lockhart, Natasha Preston, Lois Duncan, Joan Lowery Nixon, R. L. Stine and Caroline Cooney. John grew up in Brooklyn, with a younger brother and over twenty cousins (yes, it's true!) but now lives in New York City. Readers can email him at johnhallauthor@gmail.com.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 14, 2025
I know a lot of people aren't fond of Amazon, but it is a really great place to find reprints of these early 1990s YA horror books if you can't find reasonable priced ones on Thriftbooks or even eBay.
Wouldn't have known about this one otherwise.
Writers seem to like making sisters be enemies to one another and especially twins so even if that is an old hat sort of plot, it is always fun to see how to twist it.
Julie Winslow is a freshman at Pembroke University, and she has just received the surprise of her life in finding out she has a twin sister. She explains to her best friend and roommate Trisha that her mother thought she was playing a prank but that a girl showed up on their doorstep who looked exactly like Julie.
Her name is Joanna Nickels, and she learned after the death of her parents in a fire that she was adopted and had a twin sister. Julie has known since she was five that she was adopted but has been happy with her life, yet she can't wait to meet her sister. Joanna is transferring to the school but at a very bad time because there has been a murder on campus.
A girl that Julie and Trisha worked with at the college burger joint was killed at her apartment and all of Julie's other friends are wondering if there will be more victims.
Joanna arrives and the only people she meets are Julie and Trisha. Joanna wears glasses and mousy clothes, not at all like Julie and her fashionable ones, yet she seems to not like Trisha from the get-go. She even asks if Trisha can move out so Joanna can room with her sister and neither she nor Julie can refuse without either one looking bad.
It is soon made clear that Joanna wishes she could be more like Julie. She starts borrowing Julie's clothes without asking and even going around acting as if she were Julie which involves flirting with boys...guys who already have girlfriends. Like jock Alex Reed and his girlfriend Brooke thinks that it is Julie doing the flirting and doesn't believe that she has a twin sister that it is just an excuse.
Joanna won't set that right and it makes Julie furious before it makes her...concerned.
All of Julie's clothes end up slashed and someone tries to kill her down in the basement. Trisha tells Julie she thinks it has to be Joanna, but Julie can't completely blame her sister even if they are strangers.
A party to welcome Joanna doesn't go as planned and then another body turns up with her throat slashed...it's Brooke. Her housemates, Stephanie and April, think that Alex is behind it, but Julie finds a piece of evidence before the cops arrive that seems to point to Joanna.
Julie doesn't tell Trisha what she found or her new beau, Noah, who works for the school paper covering the "Slasher" story. Then some of Julie's possessions start to go missing, blood poured in her bottle of shampoo and the nasty calls.
Could Julie's sister really be trying to take her place?
Soon, Alex is missing, and another body turns up...another person that Julie knows.
It goes back and forth between Julie thinking it is Joanna behind all this, but the police keep finding their own evidence that points to Alex being the killer as he has connections to all three girls. It is also Julie finding things on her own that incriminate Joanna because it is clear that she has some issues.
The reveal is made at the climax, and it was an interesting twist.
Then there was the ending.
Done as an epilogue, I actually think it was...unnecessary.
That's what kept me from wanting to give Dear Sister five stars because it just left things to open and the chapter before gave a pretty complete sense of closure. I suppose it could just be my own opinion and if you get a chance to read Dear Sister, your mileage may vary yet it is still a good read in the genre of YA Horror.
Wouldn't have known about this one otherwise.
Writers seem to like making sisters be enemies to one another and especially twins so even if that is an old hat sort of plot, it is always fun to see how to twist it.
Julie Winslow is a freshman at Pembroke University, and she has just received the surprise of her life in finding out she has a twin sister. She explains to her best friend and roommate Trisha that her mother thought she was playing a prank but that a girl showed up on their doorstep who looked exactly like Julie.
Her name is Joanna Nickels, and she learned after the death of her parents in a fire that she was adopted and had a twin sister. Julie has known since she was five that she was adopted but has been happy with her life, yet she can't wait to meet her sister. Joanna is transferring to the school but at a very bad time because there has been a murder on campus.
A girl that Julie and Trisha worked with at the college burger joint was killed at her apartment and all of Julie's other friends are wondering if there will be more victims.
Joanna arrives and the only people she meets are Julie and Trisha. Joanna wears glasses and mousy clothes, not at all like Julie and her fashionable ones, yet she seems to not like Trisha from the get-go. She even asks if Trisha can move out so Joanna can room with her sister and neither she nor Julie can refuse without either one looking bad.
It is soon made clear that Joanna wishes she could be more like Julie. She starts borrowing Julie's clothes without asking and even going around acting as if she were Julie which involves flirting with boys...guys who already have girlfriends. Like jock Alex Reed and his girlfriend Brooke thinks that it is Julie doing the flirting and doesn't believe that she has a twin sister that it is just an excuse.
Joanna won't set that right and it makes Julie furious before it makes her...concerned.
All of Julie's clothes end up slashed and someone tries to kill her down in the basement. Trisha tells Julie she thinks it has to be Joanna, but Julie can't completely blame her sister even if they are strangers.
A party to welcome Joanna doesn't go as planned and then another body turns up with her throat slashed...it's Brooke. Her housemates, Stephanie and April, think that Alex is behind it, but Julie finds a piece of evidence before the cops arrive that seems to point to Joanna.
Julie doesn't tell Trisha what she found or her new beau, Noah, who works for the school paper covering the "Slasher" story. Then some of Julie's possessions start to go missing, blood poured in her bottle of shampoo and the nasty calls.
Could Julie's sister really be trying to take her place?
Soon, Alex is missing, and another body turns up...another person that Julie knows.
It goes back and forth between Julie thinking it is Joanna behind all this, but the police keep finding their own evidence that points to Alex being the killer as he has connections to all three girls. It is also Julie finding things on her own that incriminate Joanna because it is clear that she has some issues.
The reveal is made at the climax, and it was an interesting twist.
Then there was the ending.
Done as an epilogue, I actually think it was...unnecessary.
That's what kept me from wanting to give Dear Sister five stars because it just left things to open and the chapter before gave a pretty complete sense of closure. I suppose it could just be my own opinion and if you get a chance to read Dear Sister, your mileage may vary yet it is still a good read in the genre of YA Horror.
December 26, 2025
Great read
It was a fun and entertaining Thriller. I enjoyed the twist at the end , although I predicted who the killer was early on in the book and was correct.
It was a fun and entertaining Thriller. I enjoyed the twist at the end , although I predicted who the killer was early on in the book and was correct.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews