What Happened to My Sister

May 28, 2012
In this companion piece to Me and Emma, nine-year-old Carrie and her alcoholic mother flee their small town after Carrie shoots her abusive stepfather dead. At a motel, Carrie’s mother gets drunk and entertains strangers, leaving Carrie to fend for herself. On one of her foraging trips, Carrie befriends a girl named Cricket, whose mother, Honor, sees in Carrie an eerie resemblance to her dead daughter and comes to wonder why she never meets Carrie’s mother. Carrie herself is puzzled by memories of her younger sister, Emma; she believes that Emma disappeared, but her mother swears Emma is a figment of Carrie’s imagination. As Honor and Cricket take more of an interest in Carrie’s life, the precarious web of deception that has been built around her comes under threat. While Carrie’s abuse is distressing, readers will be more troubled by choices Flock has made in telling her story. Carrie as narrator has the expected limited perspective of a child and a by-the-book colloquial voice; she petitions the reader’s sympathy too soon and fails to ever come to life. Ham-fisted coincidences, broad caricatures, and awkward plot twists don’t help. Agent: Susanna Einstein, Einstein Thompson Literary Agency.

June 1, 2012
Flock picks up where Me & Emma (2005) leaves off. Nine-year-old Carrie and her down-on-her-luck mother are leaving Toast, North Carolina, to try to put the past as far behind them as possible. But luck and their broken-down car only get them as far as Huntsville. They take up residence on the outskirts of town, and it becomes obvious that little has changed. Carrie's mother is still negligent and abusive; they run out of money, and Carrie is forced to fend for herself. On a food hunt at Wendy's, Carrie is befriended by a family who, coincidentally, have lost a daughter with the same name who looks like Carrie. As the novel unfolds, Carrie's mother begins to unravel, as do the stories about their lives. We do find out what happened to Carrie's little sister, Emma, developments delivered with a heaping spoonful of saccharine. Carrie is an interesting narrator, speaking like no other nine-year-old, while never seeming the worse for wear despite the horrors she experiences. Readers who loved Me & Emma will pounce on the sequel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)