Book Review: My Perfect Sister by Penny Batchelor

I’ve been totally overdoing it with my reading commitments. So much so that I was really worried that today’s review wouldn’t go live in time. Then I started reading the book and got so engrossed I finished it in just two sittings.

Goodreads Blurb

My Perfect Sister by Penny Batchelor

A missing sister – A bedroom kept as a shrine – A dark family secret

When Annie returns to care for her estranged mother, she’s faced with the ghosts from her past. Long-held secrets surrounding her sister Gemma’s disappearance in 1989 remain buried in her childhood house. Does a faded photograph in her sister’s old room hold the key to the past? Desperate for clues, she delves deeper in search of the truth. But is it safer to be kept in the dark? Annie is about to find out…

Review

My Perfect Sister had me totally engrossed right from the very first page. The blurb above tells one side of this story. It is a mystery, a thriller, that reopens the wounds of a missing sister and no answers to her whereabouts. I loved this part of the book. The plot was so well-thought-out, including a favourite form of narrative of mine, flashbacks to the day Gemma went missing. I loved how there weren’t too many characters. My Perfect Sister is a great story of its own merit without overcomplicating it; also why I appreciated the minimal red herrings.

But there is another element of My Perfect Sister that the blurb doesn’t tell you about.

Between the lines of Gemma’s disappearance is the story of Annie and her mother, a mother-daughter relationship that is fraught with misunderstandings, secrets, and the effects of clinical depression. Considering the investigation of Gemma’s disappearance doesn’t ramp up until the last third of the book, for me, the relationship between Annie and her mother is the real story. It’s so packed with emotion and is where we really see the characters evolve, especially Annie. It is this story that had my totally engrossed.

My Perfect Sister was a great ending to my May reads. Slot it into your June reading schedule for something to look forward to.

Pick up your copy of My Perfect Sister here.

I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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