Book Review: My Sister Lives On The Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher

‘My Sister Lives On The Mantelpiece’ by Annabel Pitcher was released in 2011, it was her debut novel, and is a hard-hitting, emotional story about grief, family, racism and friendship. The story was incredibly powerful and my eyes were welling up at the end!

The story follows ten-year-old Jamie, who has just moved with his father and sister Jasmine to the Lake District, five years after his sister, Rose was killed in a terrorist attack in Trafalgar Square. We learn about how each of the characters in Jamie’s life is choosing to cope with their grief, how his father has plunged into a downward spiral of alcoholism and racist scapegoating, his mother left the original family unit, and Jamie can’t remember anything about Rose, while Jasmine struggles to pick up the pieces.

It was hard to read Jamie’s attempts to navigate placating his father’s racism and islamaphobia, with his want to be friends with Sunya. The book demonstrated that children aren’t inherently receptive to the racist rhetoric their family may spew, but they can take it in. As Jamie and Sunya get closer, he wants to outright reject his father’s ideology and his scapegoating, and yet, he can’t because he’s a ten-year-old boy. He Can’t just up and leave his Dad. Which makes the inevitable fallout of finding out incredibly sad, Jamie clearly had a great foundation of friendship with her, and watching him trying to keep it afloat was so sad! This book was just so sad!

There were so many heart-breaking elements to this story. For example, the hope and its symbolism in Jamie’s Spider-Man shirt, a gift from his mum and how its fraying state foreshadows what is to come. I am baffled how, throughout the duration of the book, Jamie could have gone to school in that stinky, unwashed, stained t-shirt without his teacher calling CPS. Really, it had me completely lost. Surely someone should have flagged that as a problem!

The way Jamie understands his grief after it is re-contextualised at the end broke my heart. But of course a five year old wouldn’t necessarily remember what happened. He experienced a huge trauma just being at the site of an attack, let alone losing a sister, but in repression and genuine being ten-ness, he ends up with a mile long list of faux pas’ that upset his relatives. When he loses someone else, he has a better understanding of how his Dad and Jas must feel about Rose. Whilst, equally breaking my heart in the process, of course.

This book, is of course, potentially very triggering for people who experience racism or islamophobia, or have been a witness or victim of a terror attack, but, I cannot help but feel like it’s still an important read. It teaches children about the ramifications of bullying, and the scope of grief in ways that could be easier for children in particular to navigate and digest. But, even as an adult reading it, this book ripped my heart out and stomped on it. Please give it a go it if you have the chance, it isn’t something you’ll regret reading.