The Year My Sister Got Lucky

Categories: Teen Books

In this fish out of water tale, two ballerina sisters are moved from their New York City apartment and dance lessons at the premiere ballet school in the country to a small town in rural upstate New York. The Year My Sister Got Lucky, by Aimee Friedman, follows the lives of Katya and her perfect older sister Michaela as they adjust - or avoid adjusting - to their new surroundings.

Now, I've never had a sister, so their relationship was unfamiliar to me. But the relationship between these two girls is well researched, as I discovered when I read the author's bio - she has a sister whom with she attended dance classes (check out Friedman's MySpace page). While Katya's trials and tribulations are at times humorous and other times emotional, her relationship with her big sister is the connecting theme throughout the novel.

Beginning before her family's move from city to country, Katya's once-close sister begins to pull away from her. Removed from her comfortable surroundings and isolated from her family by her sister's secrets, Katya has to forge her own way for the first time in this strange land of football games and camping trips.

There is the predictable foray into the world of dating for both Katya and her sister, but while it begins predictably, it ends with Katya making the more mature choice. It was also rewarding to see Katya beginning to realize what true friendship, outside of sisterhood, is all about.

The Year My Sister Got Lucky is a classic coming-of-age story, of course, but it is most importantly a story of sisters. The relationship between Katya and Michaela evolves through the novel as they start to experience life separate from each other, and most of all, separate from the one activity they had always done together, ballet.