A Sister Like You

Ella is beginning a new life. Bullied in her last school, victimised because she was adopted by her single mum, she has been home-schooled, but is now returning to full-time education. Permanently anxious and lacking self-confidence, the thought of this new beginning terrifies her, particularly as it is at her mother’s old school, the prestigious St. Hildegard’s School For Girls. 

Ari, too, is joining St Hilda’s-and she, too, is adopted. Her two fathers, Dad and Papa, have a much more freewheeling and openly loving approach to life than Ella’s mother, whose rigidly conventional outlook, although well-meaning, often suffocates and controls her daughter. 

Ari was often in trouble at her former school – her often misdirected unfailing energy and enthusiasm – and her inability to recognise her mistakes and remediate them resulted in a move to St Hilda’s.

Both girls have musical talent and find solace and inspiration in Monsieur Beaumont’s choir, Finding Our Voices, where they are told ‘music exists to make us complete, to bring us face to face with ourselves, to express emotions which we cannot put into words.’ Ella’s new friend Freya is also a choir member and Ella feels finally able to accept that she is attracted to her, that she is gay, which she would not have been able to verbalise before the liberating atmosphere of choir.

When Ari and Ella finally learn that they are half-sisters their reactions are polar opposites: Ella is terrified at the thought of dealing with a new responsibility and Ari is awash with enthusiasm. It is also clear that Ella’s mother disapproves of Ari’s gay dads and a meeting of the two families is strained and awkward. 

Worse still, when Ari blurts out at school that they are sisters, Ella denies it and, as a result, Ari decides she can no longer be a member of the choir which she loves so much. Yet the novel arcs up from this depressing low point – and again, it is music which comes to the rescue. 

Ella finds the courage of her convictions and her love for her sister when she makes a powerful case to Monsieur Beaumont to ask him to give Ari another chance and The Finding Our Voices end of term concert and the longed-for trip to sing in a French music festival gives the girls and their families both a rich shared experience and the chance for Ellie and Ari to spend some time together without their parents. 

When Ella’s beloved Grandma becomes seriously ill and is taken to hospital on the day of the music festival concert Ella panics and makes an ill-planned attempt to try to get back to England on her own, it is Ari who works out where she has gone and comes to find her, saving the day and cementing the bond growing between them.

It would be a reader’s betrayal if the novel had a hasty and tidily wrapped up happy ending and Sarah Hagger-Holt does not allow herself to fall into that trap. Instead, she indicates the significant emotional changes in the girls, the very gradual drawing-together of their families and the promise of a brighter future.