Shred Sister by Betsy Lerner

I will open with the punch line--I loved this book. It is the sort of story that sucks me in and I don't want to put it down until the end, and then was sorry that there wasn't more to come. The Shreds of Connecticut are raising two polar opposite daughters. Firstborn Olivia is sexy, wild and bipolar. The book is dotted with Ollie-triggered catastrophes, together with her family’s anguish as it scrambles to cover, cope, adapt. Very early on you get the sense that when she reappears, trouble will ensue. Then there is younger sister Amy — she is shy, comparatively plain, nerdy, and self-conscious. She acts as the able and witty narrator, opening with a dramatic window-shattering accident that showers hyperactive young Ollie in glass shards. Blood, ambulance and hospital time ensue; father deals while mother’s away on a vacation cruise. Amy’s voice — a perfect amalgam of weary cynicism, jealousy, angst and steady, painful love — wins the reader to her side and we shudder with her when the tornado that is Ollie comes back in to the Shred's life . This is the best of stories, with equal parts reflections and insight--not to be missed.