Thursday, March 19, 2009

Jars of Glass

Barkley, Brad and Heather Hepler. Jars of Glass. New York: Dutton Books, 2008.

Summary:
Chloe and Shana, sisters, recount their lives without their mother in alternating chapters. Chloe tries to hold everything together, taking care of Micah, her father and the apartment in the hopes that they can prove to the social worker that they present the "stable environment" her mother needs to come home to. Shana, on the other hand, does everything she can to distance herself from her family and desperately tries to thwart Chloe in her efforts to bring their mother back.

Booktalk:
"Yeah, that's me, Miss Normal. My mother did stuff you hear about on the nightly news, and now she's locked away in a loony bin. My sister collects broken glass. We've adopted a kid who doesn't speak and lives off sugar. Oh, yeah, and I live in a funeral home" (p170-1).*
Life is far from normal for Shana, her little sister Chloe and their adopted brother Micah. Chloe runs around trying to make everything better and preparing everything for their mother's return. Meanwhile Shana is doing everything that she can to make sure that things don't get worse, even if that means sabotaging her sister, who was once her best friend, and making it impossible for their mother to ever come home again.
*Quote taken from an ARC.

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