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Summary
Summary
THE FIRST TIME ANA TORRES C A M E B AC K A S A G H O S T, HER SISTERS WEREN'T THERE.
A year later, Jessica, Iridian, and Rosa, still consumed by grief and haunted by Ana's memory, start
noticing strange things around the house: laughter without a voice, shadows cast by nothing,
writing on the walls. None of them have seen Ana, but they know she's trying to send them a
message--or maybe it's a warning.
In a stunning follow-up to her National Book Award-longlisted novel All the Wind in the World,
Samantha Mabry weaves a magical, romantic tale about ferocious sisterhood.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up--A year has passed since the oldest Torres daughter, Ana, fatally fell (jumped?) from her bedroom window. Her sisters have endured their loss behind rigid defenses: Jessica assumed Ana's life, including claiming Ana's boyfriend; Iridian assuages her loneliness with Ana's books and writing; Rosa seeks solaces in Sunday services and animals seen and unseen. Their widowed father's onerous mourning looms as both threatening abuse and absent neglect. From across the street, a group of boys--once Ana's voyeurs--continue to watch the shattered family, bearing witness with an obsessive mixture of judgment and awe. Despite attempts to escape, the sisters cannot seem to break the oppressive male gaze--even Mabry withholds narrative control from the daughters, at least until dead Ana returns with a vengeance to set her sisters free. Enhanced by his bilingual background, actor Luis Moreno assumes the San Antonio family's sprawling dysfunction with impressive nuance. Effortlessly modulating tone and delivery, he seethes as the Torres father losing control; cowers, cajoles, and growls as Jessica challenges her boyfriend's violence; longs, shields, and shouts as Iridian finds her voice; dreams, hopes, and searches as Rosa seeks connection. VERDICT Regardless of format, savvy audiences will demand this tale.--Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC
Publisher's Weekly Review
Not long after she and her sisters tried to run away during San Antonio's Fiesta celebration, Ana Torres, 17, fell from her bedroom window and died. A year later, her largely absent father, Rafe, has descended into grief, leaving his other daughters, Jessica, Iridian, and Rosa, to clean up his messes. Each sister copes differently with Ana's death: Jessica, involved with Ana's abusive former boyfriend, simmers with barely restrained anger; Iridian internalizes her pain and finds solace in reading and writing; and Rosa, who has an uncanny connection to the natural world and its creatures, seeks a hyena escaped from the zoo that she believes may be connected to Ana. When strange things start happening, the sisters think that Ana's angry ghost may want something from them. Mabry (All the Wind in the World) peppers a few gut punches throughout a story largely grounded in the ordinary, and the stark contrasts highlight the eerie power of the otherworldly events. Leading up to the slightly ambiguous ending, the Latinx sisters' multiple narratives read more like a series of vignettes than a cohesive whole. Still, Mabry speaks gracefully to the transformative power of grief and the often messy (even violent) road to letting go. Ages 14--up. (Mar.)
Horn Book Review
The Torres family, always considered misfits in their San Antonio community, suffered tragedy a year ago when eldest sister Ana fell to her death from her bedroom window. That Ana was sneaking out to see a boy unworthy of her affection, and that her sister Jessica started dating him soon after Ana's death, are gossip-worthy enough; add to that middle sister Iridian's angry self-isolation and youngest sister Rosa's seeming ability to communicate with animals, and the siblings' feeling of alienation grows. When Ana's ghost appears, it's unclear whether she means their family well or ill. Mabry's moody writing paints a picture of a grief-stricken family mired in its own suffering and seemingly doomed to stay there. The descriptions are sensory ("She didn't yet know the pure joy that came along with smelling the pages of books, how a new book smelled like chlorine or how a used book sometimes smelled like -cigarettes or tangy breath"), visceral, and weird ("Jessica pulled a clump of her older sister's hair from the [shower] trap...held the wet strands between her fingers for a few moments before putting the hair in her mouth and swallowing it"). The story's climax is -chaotic and cathartic-and it ultimately presents a path forward for the sisters. Elissa Gershowitz May/June 2020 p.129(c) Copyright 2020. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A ghostly tale of revenge and the strength of the sisterly bond.The four Torres sisters have fascinated the boys in their San Antonio neighborhood for years. Each with her own quirky personality, they all suffer from the suffocating hold their widower father has over them. While attempting to sneak out, Ana, the oldest, fatally falls from a tree. A year later, her angry spirit begins to haunt their home. The novel alternates between a first-person perspective by an unnamed narratorone of the boys across the streetand the points of view of each sister, narrated in the third person. The chapters jump from past to present, dropping hints about what truly happened and why Ana is haunting her old home. The Torres sisters mourn in their own waysJessica tries to become Ana, even dating her abusive boyfriend; Iridian stays inside reading Ana's romance novels; and Rosa attends church and hopes to commune with animals. The author adeptly portrays the claustrophobia of living in a small town and being under the watch of an overbearing patriarchal figurein fact, the male gaze is the true enemy in this novel, and it's only when the young women join forces that they're able to break free of its oppressive ties. Mabry's (All the Wind in the World, 2017, etc.) third novel has echoes of The Virgin Suicides. The protagonists are Latinx.The evocative language and deft characterization will hauntand empowerreaders. (Magical realism. 14-adult) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
When Ana Torres dies falling out of her bedroom window, her three younger sisters are left adrift. Trapped by the watchful eyes of their San Antonio neighborhood and the violence of their widowed father's grief, each responds in her own way. Jessica, now the oldest and propelled by rage, tries to become her sister, wearing Ana's clothes and dating the boy people say Ana was sneaking out to meet. Iridian, the middle sister, fades into herself, writing incessantly in notebooks. Rosa, the youngest, searches for signs in church and in the animals of the neighborhood. A year after Ana's death, a ghost arrives in the Torres house, bringing with it a reckoning for all three sisters and everyone in their lives. Mabry, whose All the Wind in the World (2017) was longlisted for the National Book Award, keeps her narrative tightly focused on intimate character study. Most of the action takes place over only a week, and the point of view shifts between the individual sisters and, in chapters whose style echoes Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides (1993), the collective perspective of a group of neighborhood boys. Borrowing elements of magical realism and Latinx folklore, this is a story that is often uncomfortable; in its quest to explore grief, family, and the traumas inflicted by each, it lays its characters utterly and unforgettably bare.
