The Sister Pact

by Stacie Ramey

[shannonmiz]

This review was originally posted on It Starts at Midnight
Allie is a mess during this book, as anyone would be after losing their sister. But, Allie's pain is made even worse by the fact that she and her sister had always told each other that they'd never end their lives without the other one doing so too. So she now is dealing with the pain of losing her sister, and also wondering why her sister has left her behind. Throw in some really crappy family dynamics and the love life from hell and well.. you have one girl with a lot of problems.

The thing about this that I liked really was the realism. Because at first, a lot of people were concerned about Allie. And eventually... they became less so, as people do. As much as you'd like to think that the world grinds to a halt when you're dying inside, it does not. And it is so, so clear in this story. Allie's mom has her own demons, including struggles with pills and some mental health issues. Allie's dad has his struggle with assholery happening, which makes him worse than useless, because he is basically a bully. Allie's crush, Max, likes to pretend he cares about her until some new girl comes around for him to try to hook up with. And the new love interest in her life, Nick, seems to be very nice to Allie, until he starts being Judgy McJudgerson and instead of helping Allie, he decides to make her feel like crap about her decisions. And sadly, this is the most personality Nick has in the whole book.

So yeah, Allie's on her own, trying to unravel the secrets of Leah's life in an attempt to get a bit of closure. Alone, except for her pills. And here is where things started to break down for me a bit. You have a girl with a history of mental health issues, and a huge (and fatal) family history of drug abuse. But let's offer her pills! ALL the pills, of course. And other drugs. And when you see her chugging cold medicine, let's just turn a blind eye. Look, I do understand that the world is not going to stop for Allie's loss and grief, but for goodness sake, do people have to throw all the pills at her? 

Which brings me to another problem: WHY does everyone in this book use drugs? Like, what kind of fresh hell is this? Allie gets made fun of for not using drugs, not having sex, and it doesn't make any sense to me. Is this my age showing? If this is what high school is like now, my children will be homeschooled. At a convent. Even the boy. I digress, but seriously, this is not real life. Nor is there any reason given for why all the drugs have to be used by every single person. So it was both annoying and confusing.

Bottom Line: I don't know. On one hand, the story was certainly emotionally gripping, and I couldn't help but feel for Allie in so, so many ways. But the lack of sense of any other character left me scratching my head. I understand that there will be people in life who let you down, but all of them? Had that been the case, I would have assumed Allie's story would have taken a much uglier turn.