ARC Review: A Tale of Two Sisters

Silent Sister by Megan Davidhizer

Publication Date: August 6, 2024

Summary from NetGalley:

The must-read suspense novel of the summer about a mysterious sister’s disappearance, her biggest betrayal and a deadly truth screaming to come out.

Two sisters went missing on their class trip—Grace, the outgoing athlete who is friends with just about everyone, and Maddy, the wallflower wilting in her sister’s shadow who’d rather absorb herself in her journal than talk to her classmates.

But when Grace is found—injured, with no memory of what happened—everybody thinks she’s lying. It’s hard not to look guilty with Maddy’s blood on her clothes.

Desperate to save her sister—and prove her own innocence—Grace must piece together what happened on that school trip with the help of her sister’s notebook and classmates who may not be telling the police everything that about that tragic night.

She will discover her sister’s secrets can’t stay quiet…but what if her own are the most terrifying of all?

ARC provided by Random House Children via NetGalley for an honest review.

Confession:

This was so good, that I really had a hard time putting it down. If I wasn’t so busy with family when I picked this one up I could have easily read it in one sitting. This is definitely one that you want to add to your vacation reads this summer.

The story is told through two timelines. There is one that goes through the events that happened before one of the sisters disappeared and one about the aftermath. Each is told through a different perspective, but the sister that survives is a bit unreliable. She has no memory of what happened the night they both disappeared, and gets really bad headaches when she tries to. I really liked both timelines, and found both of them to be compelling stories. Even though the sisters were not close, they still cared about each other, and I was glad to see them resolve some of their issues by the end of the story.

Maddy’s story is a bit more compelling than Grace’s was. She is the wallflower and feels that her parents don’t see her as much as they see older and more outgoing Grace. But she does find herself opening up a bit on the school trip and begins to make connections with some of the other students that she didn’t expect. I loved the little poems that we got at the end of the chapters. They were wonderfully done and really captured how Maddy was feeling. Grace was a bit harder to like, but I was still happy that she was able see Maddy for who she truly was.

It is hard to talk about the story without giving anything away. It is fast paced, has lots of good twists, and the characters are well drawn and believable. I did figure out one of the twists pretty early on, but I was ok with that. The event that happened at their old school was a bit of a shock when it was finally revealed and I could totally see why that was what sent them on the path they were on. There is even a little romance which I actually quite liked and loved that it didn’t dominate the story. I was expecting the ending to be a bit more nefarious than it was, but in retrospect I really liked the way everything came together. This book has its moments but it will keep you riveted until the end.

A very smart and exciting debut. If you enjoy YA mystery thrillers this is one that you want on your list. If you can, read it this summer. It is one that you don’t want to miss. I will be keeping an eye out for the next book by this author. She will be one to watch.