Sister Dear

Although we do learn that Eleanor is going to court during the first chapter there is a lot that we still don't know about the story and a lot that gets hinted about but isn't told to us at that moment. This is good for the book, as it allows for more exploration and explanation to be done. It is told to us plainly that she has done something wrong, and that someone had died - which she blamed herself for - but we do not know if this is true, or if there is more to the story.

Her father has pancreatic cancer, which is known to be the cancer with the lowest survival rate out of them all, which instantly brings out a lot of sympathy for her character for us readers, and allows us to be more forgiving towards her actions. Even though we do not know what actions she has committed yet. We also see that her mother isn't nearly as kind as her father is towards her. Her actions of ignoring Eleanor in favour of her golden child sister, Amy, had a massive effect on Eleanor growing up and still to this day is something she thinks about.

This is when she learns that her parents have been keeping a massive secret from her. Her father, who has raised and loved her, isn't her biological father.

While going home, angry at this revelation but finally realising that her father is the person who raised her, not the one who is associated by blood, she is attacked, robbed, assaulted and threatened. Only being saved from further harm by her neighbour, Lewis Farrier. He is attractive, built and caring. She thinks that he is way out of her league so doesn't even bother considering anything, but that could be moreso to do with her self esteem being lowered by her mother treating her as the scapegoat.

Her body image isn't the only thing that her mother ruined for her. Her self blaming for things that she had no control over is also something that has been deeply ingrained into her being. Her father dies while she was knocked out in the hospital and instead of the usual sorrow, she blames herself for being alone. Not the mother who abandoned her and doesn't care about her, not the sister who never realised her struggle, not the cancer which had taken away her father. She blames herself for all of it instead of the circumstances and people around her. She didn't get to tell her father how she really felt after not parting on the best terms, but what tipped her over the edge was her mother who, at that moment decided to tell her that she shouldn't stay to see her dad and instead should leave the hospital. In one of her most emotionally vulnerable states, she is told that she has done enough as if she is the cause of her father's worsening condition.

In her grief, and while looking for family, she does things that a person in the correct state of mind wouldn't do. One of her hobbies is taking pictures of things, with her favourite part being to take pictures of people who don't know that she is taking pictures. It sounds creepier than it is, as it is more like she loves to capture people's raw, natural emotions in public areas. This does start getting a bit creepy after she starts to look up her newfound family and finds out that they work and live close to her. With this newfound knowledge, she starts listening in on their conversations, and taking pictures of them candidly, without their knowledge. The dark inner thoughts and impulse control that she doesn't have started to take over.

After one of these misadventures, she also comes across an opportunity to take Victoria, her half sister's, ring after she forgot it. She instantly regrets it, but after seeing how well Victoria is living and being jealous of everything that could have been hers, she decides not to return it. Not only does she decide that, but she also starts letting the intrusive thoughts win. And instead of brushing them off and trying to calm them down she encourages them and wants to see how much more she can take from Victoria. Essentially becoming a version of her mother.

She has only really encountered her biological father up until now, but the combination of everything that happened to her, such as her father dying, her mother being as horrible as she usually was, caused Eleanor to snap and her hatred towards the whole family, not just her father who was actually horrible to her, starts to come together. Things that she usually would have jumped at, a date with Lewis, or a new commission for creating a website, are all thrown onto the back burner as she directly contacts her sister and starts working on a website together with her, and working her way into Victoria's life as well.

Through this worming, she also starts to find out that Victoria and her husband Hugh aren't as perfect as they look on the outside. Things like Victoria flinching when he touches her or losing all her enthusiasm soon after he arrives home. There is something going on inside her marriage that is causing her distress, and instead of wanting to figure it out and help her sister, she wants to find something that she can use over them if need be.

At first, she felt bad and had moments where she questioned herself, but as time went on, this questioning grew less and less. She didn't fear what she was becoming anymore, she recognised it and started to feel a trill that she was so perfectly infiltrating others' lives, all to take down her biological father for rejecting her attempt at creating a family after she lost the last one who cared about her.

One thing that struck me about her actions was one scene where she contemplated what it could be like to be Victoria. Dying her hair, talking to herself while trying to imitate Victoria's voice. It started to get creepy and hint at something. Although on the surface it just looks like she was jealous of Victoria's life and loving parents who will give her the tools she needs to succeed.

But within this want to be Victoria there is something else inside her. They want to be accepted by the family. Victoria is sweet towards her. Energetic, and enthusiastic and she starts to love spending time with her. She had a sister when she was younger, Amy, but that relationship was only one because they thought they were biological sisters. With Victoria it is different. She doesn't know that they are sisters and yet treats her as one which only makes Eleanor more appreciative.

Her relationship with Lewis starts, and everything is looking up. Apart from her keeping her biological relationship with Victoria a secret from her, Eleanor's life is finally looking up. This is when the book takes a turn and feels a little bit crazy to read.

Victoria comes over to Eleanor's place and not only tells her that Hugh, her husband, has been mentally abusing her but recently started to physically abuse her as well after she accused him of having an affair. Not only does she drop this bombshell, but she also tells Eleanor that Lewis has been cheating on her, providing a picture as proof. The first half of this book has been crafted perfectly to justify all the feelings that we see. All the hurt, pain, change, want, and craving that we know is all justified throughout the first half which really elevates this book into a higher bracket than I had initially put it in.

And even with this, it doesn't end here. Things start to click into place. How Victoria acted when they first met and how she was so accepting of Eleanor as if playing up to her ideal family, or how her ring was left in the bathroom randomly when that is something that is extremely unlikely to happen, or when there was no build-up for Hugh being framed as an abuser and how everything started to fit together too perfectly. It all accumulated until we were left with a Victoria who had set up Eleanor, knowing that she is her sister, but framing her for killing Hugh in cold blood.

We never knew if Eleanor was crazy or not, and there were things pointing to the fact that she was the whole time. That she wasn't sane of mind, that she was a crazy stalker but that was only slightly true. While she did stalk, and she did do things that made us see her as someone who is crazy, that doesn't mean that she was the craziest one in the story. In fact, even after knowing all that she was one of the best, morally, characters in the whole book which tells you a lot about the other characters in this book.

This book was excellently written and the pain I felt at the end of it was like no other. I had come to care about Eleanor a lot, and the fact that not only did Victoria frame her and get her sent to jail for 18 years (by manipulating Eleanor's lawyer) but she also took Lewis, acting like a grieving widow and potentially becoming Eleanor's daughter's stepmother. I personally felt betrayed as I had trusted her to lead Eleanor down a new path and become the family that she had lost. But that was never to be, and by the time I finished this book I realised just how well the characters had been captured, which was why I felt so betrayed, and how well the environment that Eleanor lived inside had been crafted so that her every step made sense, and could be viciously exploited by her 'caring' sister.

Her grief over just losing her father, her mother blaming her and then her biological father rejecting her new attempt at a family which caused her to spiral. How she was able to latch into the thoughts of revenge but grew fond of her sister once she realised that Victoria was providing everything that she wanted from the family that never loved her. Everything perfectly set up the betrayal and yet it was hidden, in plain sight, the whole time.

I loved this book, even though the ending was hard to read, and would love it if there could be a sequel as the catharsis would be absolutely amazing if there was revenge and revelations involve.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book, as it is very well written, and emotional and creates such a brilliant environment. I did have a few criticisms of this book, such as there could have been one or two hints towards Victoria being a psychopath, such as little slip-ups either in her stories or in her emotions. Psychopaths have to learn how to mimic the emotions that everyone else has naturally, and although they can get very good at it, there is no way that she wouldn't have some tells, even if they were just observed, but not recognised as anything, by Eleanor. Or how there were certain scenes when the characters didn't really feel real and I don't mean in the way that a person with no emotions would feel, but moreso in the way that they felt like characters on the page. There was also the part that started everything, where Victoria left her ring on the bathroom counter. I think that this was a relatively unrealistic scenario and that there were a lot more calculated ways for Victoria to start their 'relationship'. That doesn't take away from the overall book though, as, for me, those things are more minor than they might seem described here.

8.5/10