Haunted Sister

by Lael Littke

Overview

How can you have a ghost story without a ghost? What if the ghost is only in your head? How would you know that you aren't losing your mind?

By medical standards, sixteen-year-old Janine Palmer dies on the day of her automobile accident. When her spirit travels to the "other side," however, she is told that it isn't her time to die, and is sent back to live out her life. When she awakens from her coma, though, she discovers that she hasn't come back alone. There is someone else inside her mind. The voice in Janine's head claims to be the ghost of Lenore, Janine's twin sister, who drowned twelve years earlier. Lenore blames her own death on Janine and is determined to live again in her sister's body.

Now the two girls must vie for one body. Can Janine be sure that her twin is really inside her, or is she simply going crazy?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466839052
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	09/15/1998
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	195 KB
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Lael Littke has written many books for middle-grade readers. She has taught writing classes at Pasadena City College and UCLA. Ms. Littke grew up on a farm in Idaho, but now lives in Pasadena, California.

Lael Littke has written a number of books for middle-grade readers, including Haunted Sister. She has taught writing at Pasadena City College and UCLA. She lives in Pasadena, California.

Editorial Reviews

Part ghost story, part psychological drama, this eerie account of a near-death experience is sure to draw teenage thrill-seekers. Beginning with the sentence, "It was raining on the day I died," narrator Janine recounts how, following a car accident, she is taken to a place filled with "mists and fog," where she is reunited with her dead twin sister, Lenore. When Janine returns to the world of the living, Lenore is there with her, invading her thoughts and learning to control her body. Lenore, who was always the more mischievous of the two, makes Janine do things against her will, like snubbing her boyfriend, Scott, while he recovers from the same car accident; flirting with Scott's hospital roommate, football-hero Rafe; and shoplifting a bracelet. Janine's doctor attributes her patient's belief in Lenore to a temporary multiple-personality disorder caused by head injuries. Janine's problem, however, is more complicated. Lenore is forcing a buried memory--a secret behind Janine's mixed-up identity--to the surface. Despite her heavy-handed foreshadowing and less than subtle rendering of the B-movie good twin/evil twin theme, Littke (The Watcher) manages to make the improbable seem just plausible (and engrossing) enough to encourage readers to suspend their disbelief. Ages 11-14. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 6-9-"It was raining on the day I died." With this statement, Janine begins her story. She is seriously injured in an automobile accident while cutting school with her boyfriend. When she "returns" from her near-death experience and awakens from a coma, she finds that her dead twin sister haunts her every thought. Lenore, who drowned at the age of four, wants to experience Janine's life on her own terms. Janine, who has blocked the events of her sister's death from her memory, tries to explain her sister's presence to her parents and doctors, but they tell her it is just a reaction to her head injury. As Lenore takes control of more and more of her actions, Janine finds herself caught in a web of mystery and confusion. She wants to be left alone, but Lenore forces her to remember the day of the drowning. The plot's surprising twists and turns capture readers' interest as Janine tries to unravel the past. In an unexpected ending, she faces the fact that she is indeed Lenore. The believable characters, though rather static, relate well to one another and help to weave the threads of mystery together in a satisfying manner. Fans of Lois Duncan, Joan Lowery Nixon, and Caroline Cooney should welcome this book.-Janet Hilbun, Sam Houston Middle School, Garland, TX

School Library Journal

A tale of twinsþone dead, one aliveþbecomes an ineffective hybrid: part ghost story, part multiple-personality yarn, part romance. When goody-goody Janine, 16, cuts school to go for a ride with budding boyfriend Scott, both of them are critically injured when another driver smashes into their car. Janine has a near-death experience in which her mischievous twin, Lenore, who drowned at age four, moves into Janine's body to sample the life she's missed. It's a promising startþis Lenore a real spirit presence, or just a manifestation of Janine's darker side? Revelationsþthat it was Janine who died when they were four, and that Lenore took Janine's name and became a compulsively "good" girl in the wake of the accidentþwon't surprise mystery fans (or viewers of spidery Bette Davis films). The real disappointment is the agelessness of the dead twin, whose sexual appetites and use of contemporary slang place her as a teenager, but who can also be jarringly childlike. An astute therapist grounds the story; so does the twins' mother, who knows the truth but believes the surviving twin must come to it on her own. The endingþJanine/Lenore accepts that she is a blend of two people, good and badþis a valiant attempt to bring many ideas together, but the plotting overwhelms Littke (Blue Skye, 1991, etc.); wavering between full-blown grotesque and moments of deep feeling, her story gets lost in the middle. (Fiction. 12-14)

Kirkus Reviews