Shred Sisters
By Besty Lerner
Published 2024
Read Dec 2025
This is Lerner’s first novel although she’s published some non-fiction previously.
Lerner uses the younger sister, Amy, to narrate her life and the impact her older sister, Olivia (Olly) has on her family. Olly, whose love of adventure and out of the ordinary behavior is interesting to her parents until she reaches her teen years. Then her behavior becomes very concerning, and her parents realize they can’t do much about it. She begins stealing, leaving home for extended periods of time, and more. Olly is hospitalized for a while but it seems to have little impact on her erratic behavior. Eventually, her parents split, in part because they disagree on how to deal with Olly, her father remaining supportive and dismissive of anything “wrong” with Olly and her mother being less so.
In the meantime, Amy is growing up. Her good behavior and excellent grades win her no accolades from her parents who are worn out by Olly. She was bullied in school, but switching to a private high school helps. She graduates from college and begins a graduate program. When she doesn’t get a grant to continue the scientific work to which she’s devoted herself, she chooses to leave the program and science. She eventually becomes a successful editor for a publishing company.
Over time, Olly’s erratic behavior leads her into sex work and later convincing her parents to help her start a business; unfortunately, but perhaps predictability, she steals the start-up money and vanishes again. She’s in and out of their lives which becomes increasingly complicated for everyone. Amy eventually understands that Olly likely has bipolar depression but this is never discussed by the family.
This book does a great job of showcasing the very difficult situation that families face when a member has a mental illness and doesn’t allow themselves to be treated–why would they when the mania is so much fun and the meds take that all away.
This reader enjoyed finding a sympathetic character in this book, Amy. She suffers many disappointments, makes some poor decisions but accepts their consequences and gets on with life, and faces continuing obstacles as the only sibling left to deal with Olly after her parents pass. Lerner didn’t over-romanticize anything about Amy’s life and accomplishes providing a character that the reader can truly like.
Lerner is a literary agent and an editor, and it really shows. This reader is getting more sensitive to editing – overdrawn text, inconsistencies, etc. It’s interesting that the author chooses editing as the career in which Amy excels. Unlike some books that have a book editor as a character, this book was very well written and edited–crisp and so engaging that reading was complete in two days.
This reader highly recommends this book for both reading and especially discussing with a group. There is much to discuss—the characters, the quality of the writing, and the situation it depicts. Society interacts with mental health issues as little as possible, and this book helps us understand what it’s really like to have a mentally ill member of the family.
MarshaReads.com 