Listen to Your Sister¹ by Neena Viel, eBook, 343 pages
Synopsis from GoodReads: Twenty-five year old Calla Williams is struggling since becoming guardian to her brother, Jamie. Calla is overwhelmed and tired of being the one who makes sacrifices to keep the family together. Jamie, full of good-natured sixteen-year-old recklessness, is usually off fighting for what matters to him or getting into mischief, often at the same time. Dre, their brother, promised he would help raise Jamie–but now the ink is dry on the paperwork and in classic middle-child fashion, he’s off doing his own thing. And through it all, The Nightmare never stops haunting Calla: recurring images of her brothers dying that she is powerless to stop.
When Jamie’s actions at a protest spiral out of control, the siblings must go on the run. Taking refuge in a remote cabin that looks like it belongs on a slasher movie poster rather than an AirBNB, the siblings now face a new threat where their lives–and reality–hang in the balance. Their sister always warned them about her nightmares. They really should have listened.
BOOK REVIEW: I 100% judged this book by it's cover. I mean look at it! It's so intriguing! "The nightmare is real." Hello! How ominous! I love everything about it. If you had asked me before I started reading what this book was about I wouldn't have been able to tell you anything. Now, I have learned that this book is the author's debut novel and she lives in Washington, which is where I am from originally. I didn't know that so you can imagine my surprise when a particular road in the Seattle area is mentioned at the beginning of the book I was a little excited and then when they mentioned living in Seattle I said all the yes!
Have you ever seen the show "Black Mirror" on Netflix? You know how each episode, while they're different, are all equally as weird and crazy and terrifying in some way shape or form? That's the vibe I was getting from this story. There were times when I had to go back and read something again because it didn't make sense to me only to have it leave me still scratching my head. Some of the scenes were excellently detailed but some felt a little like two ideas were blurring together and neither one was really getting the point across.
This is a solid 4 star read for me. Let me go back a second and say that I enjoy the show "Black Mirror" and that is one of the reasons that while I got confused at times, I still enjoyed this book a lot. I would love a physical copy of this book. I think one of the main reasons why I found myself getting confused more often is because all three siblings narrated chapters but there wasn't a steady rotation between them. It didn't go from Calla to Dre to Jamie and back to Calla. It would jump around and maybe go from Calla to Dre to Jamie back to Dre to Calla to Jamie to Dre to Calla to Dre, etc. I think if the chapters would have followed the same pattern of narrators then that may have helped some of the confusion. That could have possibly made this a 4.5 or a 5 star but if this is how the author is coming out of the gates, I can't wait to see what she does next. Also just saw that the audiobook has a male and female narrators! I absolutely love that!
4/5 Stars
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