My Sister Dilly by Maureen Lang is a story of two sisters in small-town Illinois, both struggling to come with grips by the choices they have made in the past. The book begins with older sister, Hannah, picking up Dilly from prison, after Dilly has finished serving a six-year sentence. Lang strings the reader along for a while before she explains just what Dilly did to land her in prison, but the reason is eventually revealed and helps the reader to understand just how far Dilly has come in her life and faith in God.
The girls return to their parent’s hog farm, staying there temporarily until they can move into a house in their small town that Hannah has purchased to make up for her mistakes. Years earlier, Hannah had left for bigger things in California, leaving Dilly to endure some tough life-choices on her own. All of these years later, Hannah feels as though she is responsible for Dilly’s decision to commit the crime that landed her in prison, simply by not being a big part of Dilly’s life.
As both sisters try to figure out who they are in their new, yet familiar-from-childhood lives, they move forward with their world at very different paces. Dilly is much quicker to find her footing in the outside world and figure out her relationships than Hannah can manage. Hannah has been in denial and close-minded about those around her for so long, that I just wanted to shake her and tell her to get a clue. I really had trouble relating at all to Hannah, as she came across as a bit of a brat for the first 80 pages of the book. I think Lang was attempting to make Hannah come across as sarcastic, but to me she was just snarky and on a high horse. It bothered me that it was nearly impossible for Hannah to place herself in other’s shoes and she seemed to have trouble understanding how others felt. However, once Lang introduced Mac, Hannah’s best friend from California, and brought him into the story, the plot started to click and Hannah finally became somewhat likeable to me.
One of Hannah’s problems returning home is figuring out how to relate to her stoic, religious-rigid parents. However, I could see a much softer side to them than Hannah could (as the story is told mostly through her point of view) and her parents were two of my favorite people in the book. By the end of the book, all characters were quite relatable to me and Hannah finally stopped looking down her nose at all things small-town and judging those around her. Instead, she decided to know God on a personal level, realizing her need for Him. And she finally understood that following Him is not about “religion” but about “relationship.”
Reviewed by Melissa Paulson
