The Shadow Sister

Gr 8 Up–“My sister is a bitch, but that doesn’t mean I want her dead” begins Meade’s narrative of adolescent animosity between sisters—until one goes missing. Casey resents her cheerleader older sister Sutton. The feeling is mutual. When Sutton goes missing and is miraculously found alive, her memory is wiped by trauma and the only person she recalls and reacts to is Casey. Annoyed by this attention, Casey, with the help of her bestie Ruth, asks questions and learns about events prior to the disappearance—such as why Sutton’s boyfriend had her jeep, issues with the cheer coach, and that two more young Black women disappeared in the weeks before her sister’s abduction. Slowly, the sisters rebuild their relationship with less hostility. Then Ruth goes missing, and Casey risks taking Sutton to the place she was found, hoping it might unlock a memory to help them find Ruth. A horrible truth altered by a metaphysical twist is revealed. Most of the story is from Casey’s perspective. Sutton tells her side in some chapters on events going back several years to the day she disappeared. Always in the background is the history of their enslaved ancestors and their grandma’s influence on them. Casey and Sutton are biracial Black and white, and Ruth is Black.