Sibling relationships have always been rich fodder for literature. I love exploring the bond between people who are uniquely the only ones in the whole world who have the singular shared experience of being raised by the same people. That connection can make you exceptionally close, but it can also be the source of much tension: two people who might love each other, but don’t like each other very much.
Xixi Tian, This Place Is Still Beautiful
That tension is at the heart of my debut novel, This Place Is Still Beautiful. I wanted to write about two sisters who despite being raised by the same single mother, look nothing alike, and want nothing to do with each other – and how that plays out particularly when an overt act of racism happens to their family. With siblings, even when there’s a lot of animosity toward one another, it’s hard to just walk away, and I think that just makes for a fascinating dynamic. While I don’t have a sister, I did grow up with a brother who was six years younger than me, and that was a challenging relationship when we were younger, because we were SO different and yet forced to be together by bonds of family.
YA is full of amazing stories involving siblings, since finding your way around a sibling relationship can be a huge part of your teen years. Here are some of my favorites that I’ve read:
1. I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
A classic sibling story – what really stood out to me about this one is not only the incredible writing, but the interesting narrative structure of split POVs and split timeline, so as the reader, you’re piecing together what exactly happened to the sister and brother duo as you’re reading. The twist when it happens is devastating.
2. Stay With Me by Garret Freymann-Weyr
This is one of my all-time favorite books. The main character, Leila, grapples with her half-sister Rebecca’s suicide, while feeling her way into a new and tenuous relationship with her remaining half-sister Clare, who is taking over her guardianship while Leila’s mother and father go abroad for work. Told in simple, crisp prose and with quiet thoughtfulness, I can never recommend this book enough.
3. The Ones We’re Meant To Find by Joan He
A sibling relationship with a sci-fi and mystery backdrop. Like with my book, Cee and Kay are wildly different, but bound by family and love. The setting is intriguing and working your way through the mystery page by page is an experience to be savored.
4. You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins
I love, love, love this book. It covers all kinds of family relationships across multiple generations, but immigrant sisterhood is in particular poignant and resonant. Starry and Sunny find their own ways in America separately, even as they hold on to each other.
5. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
This one is sort of cheating because it’s not particularly ABOUT sibling relationships, but besides the powerful central plot, I could not get over how layered and three-dimensional the sibling relationships were in the story. It was one of my favorite things about the novel. I felt like everyone in Starr’s family were real people, and that was just incredibly impressive on top of how good everything else was too.
