Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House | Thousand Voices for gifting me a digital ARC of the debut novel by Juliet Faithfull. All opinions expressed in this review are my own - 4.5 stars!
Identical twins Dolores and Mita grow up in rural Brazil in the turbulent 1970s, . But at age seven, they discover that Mita has a degenerative condition eventually becoming debilitating. Without telling Dolores, their parents send Mita to a hospital in their father’s native London. The rest of the family moves to Rio, but Dolores is miserable without her twin, and her parents seem to have forgotten her. Dolores can't even contact Mita because she doesn't know how to read or write. Then she meets a new friend at school who opens doors for her.
This is a beautiful debut, a very haunting and heartbreaking coming-of-age story. It's a tale of quiet strength, as Dolores overcomes her lack of education in order to be able to write a letter to her sister, and the wonderful teacher who made that happen, eventually using that talent to make money. The story also shows the rise of the dictatorship in Brazil, marked by oppression, police torture, and the early sexualization of young girls, all portrayed through Dolores' eyes. It contains a powerful theme of family secrets, and all the guilt and shame those secrets can invoke. This one will stay with you.
