Our Take

Betsy Lerner has spent decades as a literary agent and author of books about writing — and that depth of craft is evident on every page of Shred Sisters. This is a debut that reads like the work of someone who has been waiting a long time to tell exactly this story, and who knew precisely how to tell it. What distinguishes the novel is its refusal to flatten either sister into a role. Olivia is not simply a villain or a victim of her illness — she's charming, infuriating, and completely alive on the page. And Amy, for all her caution and competence, is rendered with an honesty that keeps her from becoming merely the long-suffering straight woman to her sister's chaos. Lerner writes the complexity of that dynamic with real precision: the love that coexists with resentment, the guilt that follows relief, the way a sibling's illness can become the organizing fact of your entire life without you ever consenting to it. The publishing world backdrop gives the novel a specificity that grounds its more interior emotional territory, and Lerner's wit keeps even the darkest stretches from becoming oppressive. Readers who loved Maggie Shipstead's Great Circle for its portrait of a complicated woman, or who were moved by Nuar Alsadir's explorations of the mind and emotion, will find much to admire here. Equally, anyone who has loved someone with bipolar disorder will recognize this book immediately — and feel, perhaps for the first time, genuinely seen.