Book Blog - IMAGINARY GIRLS by Nova Ren Suma

A couple of weeks ago my sister, who is three years older than me, asked me why my stories didn't include sisters in them. I was surprised. I hadn't really thought about it.

"One is about an only child. In the other story, the sister is dead. And in your latest, she has stepsisters," she said. "You write about mom and dad, but you don't write about a sister. Why is that?"

"I don't know," I said.

But in typical big sister fashion, she wouldn't let it go. "It's because you don't want to go there," she said.

And, again in her typical big sister way, she was right. She knows me sometimes better than I know myself. After all, she's been through it all. The whole sister thing is intense, and complicated, and wonderful. But it's also a very hard relationship to describe. Perhaps one day soon I'll "want to go there," but until then I'm recommending a sister story that definitely fits the bill.


IMAGINARY GIRLS by Nova Ren Suma is eerie and thought provoking story that deeply explores the relationship between sisters. It left me with a vague, haunted feeling that was hard to shake. The cover is a great visual for the prose inside -mesmerizing, terrible, and beautiful-all at the same time.

From Nova's website:

Chloe’s older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can’t be captured or caged. After a night with Ruby’s friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers a dead body floating in the reservoir, Chloe is sent away—away from home, away from Ruby.

But Ruby will do anything to get her sister back, and when Chloe returns home at last, she finds a precarious and deadly balance waiting for her. As Chloe flirts with the truth that Ruby has hidden deeply away, the fragile line between life and death is redrawn by the complex bonds of sisterhood.

Imaginary Girls is a masterfully distorted vision of family with twists that beg for their secrets to be kept.