"My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece" Will Make a Home in Your Heart




Title:  My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece
Author:  Annabel Pitcher
Format: E-galley
Length:  211 pages
Publisher:  Little Brown and Co.
Rating:  5 stars

Ten-year-old Jamie hasn't cried since it happened. He knows he should have - Jasmine cried, Mum cried, Dad still cries. Roger didn't, but then he is just a cat and didn't know Rose that well, really.

Everyone kept saying it would get better with time, but that's just one of those lies that grown-ups tell in awkward situations. Five years on, it's worse than ever: Dad drinks, Mum's gone and Jamie's left with questions that he must answer for himself.

This is his story, an unflinchingly real yet heart-warming account of a young boy's struggle to make sense of the loss that tore his family apart.
- Goodreads
My Thoughts
This could have very well been a very gut-wrenching story, but the fact that it is told in the hopeful voice of a ten-year-old boy, who still possesses the uncanny ability to live life one moment at a time while still being aware of all happening around him, is truly amazing.

Jamie doesn't have all the answers.  He doesn't know why his mother ran off with the man from her grief support group.  He has no idea why his dad can't stop drinking, and understanding his older sister Jas, is definitely something that is not going to happen in the near future.
What Jamie does know however is that his sister Rose is dead, his father hates Muslims because he blames them for the bombing that killed her, and his best friend Sunya just happens to be one.
 
This book serves as a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit and our capacity to love in spite of ourselves.  While his father choosing to sit and soak in the sorrows of loss; Jamie is determined to find a way to live and love, while never losing his life's missing pieces.

This is a great  book for anyone who has lost someone that they love and is looking for the light at the end of grief's tunnel.
My Rating:

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