Book Review: The Sullivan Sisters by Kathryn Ormsbee

I picked this book up at the Dollar Tree because of its pretty cover, which is in the ace colors. When I saw from a blurb on the back that Kathryn Ormsbee also wrote Tash Hearts Tolstoy, I immediately purchased it. Book summary:

Time changes things.

That painful fact of life couldn’t be truer for the Sullivan sisters. Once, they used to be close, sharing secrets inside homemade blanket castles. Now, life in the Sullivan house means closed doors and secrets left untold.

Fourteen-year-old Murphy, an aspiring magician, is shocked by the death of Siegfried, her pet turtle. Seventeen-year-old Claire is bound for better things than her Oregonian hometown—until she receives a crushing rejection from her dream college. And eighteen-year-old Eileen is nursing a growing addiction in the wake of life-altering news.

Then, days before Christmas, a letter arrives, informing the sisters of a dead uncle and an inheritance they knew nothing about. The news forces them to band together in the face of a sinister family mystery...and, possibly, murder.

The Sullivan Sisters is an unforgettable novel about the ghosts of the past, the power of connection, and the bonds of sisterhood.

So, I'm just going to say it: I was acebaited. I saw the ace-colored cover; I saw that Kathryn Ormsbee wrote Tash Hearts Tolstoy, one of the first ace YA books, and just assumed this book would have at least one asexual character as well. NOPE. I was tricked, deceived, bamboozled; I was acebaited. It should be illegal to have a book's cover be purple, white, grey and black if there are no ace characters! Kathryn and the colors led me astray. Disappointment. At least one main character, Claire, is gay. There are a couple other minor characters who are gay as well, and show Claire what her future can look like as a queer person in a small town.

Despite this, this book was good. It is very sad, what with the death of one parent and the physical/emotional neglect of the other, the family's financial difficulties and alienation from each other. The oldest girl, Eileen, is a teenage alcoholic reeling from the discovery of a family secret. Claire turns to magical thinking and a #girlboss YouTuber for the advice she's missing from her sister and mom. Murphy's desire to be a magician stems from the lack of attention she so desperately craves; she feels invisible. Murphy was probably a bit weaker as a character; she's 14 but feels 12. Even when I wanted to shake the girls, I cared about them and rooted for things to improve for them. 

I have less love for the mother. I can understand working so hard to pay off the father's medical debt, but she didn't have to emotionally withdraw as well. And it made no sense for her to refuse her oldest daughter's money, given their financial situation. She should have been on top of the situation and picked up on her daughters' struggles. Now that I think about it, the mom is totally depressed, but still. She's kind of the least-rounded character; we're mostly told stuff about her.

The story really picks up when Eileen decides to check out their dead uncle's house several towns away, begrudgingly allowing Claire along for gas money; Murphy stows away and surprises her older sisters halfway there. The mystery about their family is quite dark, with murder and abuse involved. It was very interesting and kept me guessing. The book has a happy ending, with the girls starting to get and choose what they want.

Score: 4 out of 5 stars
Read in: June 16
From: Dollar Tree
Status: give away eventually

Cover notes: I have already mentioned how acebaited I was by this cover. It really is quite lovely, although the girls don't look enough like how they're written.

Trigger warnings for this book: murder, blood, gore, parental abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, parental neglect, physical neglect, emotional neglect, maggots in food (including partially eaten food), alcoholism, teenage alcoholic, underage drinking, underage binge-drinking, drunk driving, teen drunk driving, death of parent (from cancer I think?), animal death, animal neglect, animal corpse carried around in tupperware, mention of smell from said corpse, hate mail with threats and slut-shaming, teenage pregnancy mention, poor family (economically disadvantaged), medical debt, bats, creepy doll (does nothing), nice sheriff character