If guilt was an animal, then it would be an octopus.

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Not gonna lie: the main reason that I chose this audiobook was for David Tennant's narration. I'd never listened to an audiobook before and decided that a short book and a familiar voice was how I wanted to ease myself in. Consuming this book through my ears meant that I wasn't able to analyze it as much as I normally might - but sometimes, that's ok. There's something comforting about just sitting back and being read to, especially with a book like this.

This story is about a 10-year-old boy named Jamie. His older sister, Rose, died 5 years previously in a London terrorist attack. For almost as long as Jamie can remember, his family has carried the splinters of that event. His surviving sister, Jas, stopped eating. His mother had an affair and left the family. His father became an alcoholic and an aggressive racist, blaming all Muslims for the death of his daughter and demanding that his surviving children do the same. When Jamie's family moves to a new town, Jamie experiences isolation and bullying at his new school, but there is one person who offers him friendship: Sunya, who is a mischievous, imaginative, Muslim girl.

So: death, addiction, infidelity, eating disorders, racism, all in a middle-grade book. It sounds like an attempt at the ultimate tearjerker, but it's not. Given that Jamie was only 5 when Rose died, his distant memories of her life pale in comparison to his day-to-day activities and his recent memories of his family going to pieces. It's not about death as much as it is about the unpredictable ways in which the living react. Jamie's parents become ossified in their own forms of grief and anger, unable to consider that their children might be going through something different.

Jamie dreams of being a soccer star and a superhero. He looks at life as an adventure, and plots to bring his family back together. He's big-hearted, and we see the world through his vivid descriptions that express a kind of purity and simplicity while reaching out to all the senses.

At the same time, he's not particularly precocious or intuitive, and he's been somewhat desensitized. There are events that he observes without fully understanding, but that a reader will likely ascribe a meaning to and ask questions about. There are times when you arrive at a realization long before Jamie does, which evokes a feeling of pity and dread for him. This understated style of storytelling is how the book accommodates both middle-grade and non-middle-grade readers: it'll inspire some serious thoughts, but the nature of those thoughts depends on what kind of things you're ready to think about. For example, you might find yourself cheering for Jamie and Sunya when they get back at the bullies, but you might also find yourself thinking about the ways in which this behavior fuels the cycle.

The characters of Jas, Roger the cat, and Sunya are beautifully crafted and Jamie's eyes are opened through his friendships with each of them. Jas is probably my favorite character - even though she's a kid herself, and just starting to learn to live her own life, she tries to be there for Jamie in a way that their parents aren't willing to be. Jamie's sometimes uncomprehending relationship with his cat, Roger, parallels his parents' relationship with him. And Sunya forces Jamie to consider what happens when prejudiced generalizations meet an actual example of the group that is being generalized about - a person with a face and a family and her own superhero dreams. The story might become slightly too precious and heavy-handed at times, but it's a story that does need to be heard loud and clear, now as much as ever.

Since I started this review by talking about David Tennant's narration, I'll end by saying that it was even better than I had hoped. He uses a subtly different tone for every character, and the way he expresses heartbreak and disappointment is like hearing I don't want to go (if you're a Doctor Who fan) all over again. His reading of Jamie's soccer game might be the most exciting description of a sports match that I've ever heard.

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