The Opposite of Amber by Gillian Philip
Published by Bloomsbury
The Opposite of Amber combines murder mystery with a coming-of-age story and tells the tale of two sisters: bright and beautiful, Jinn and shy, younger sister, 15-year-old Ruby. They live alone in the council house they once shared with their now dead mother, so the reader gets the sense of survival in the face of adversity. Everything is perfect in narrator Ruby’s eyes and she’s more than happy to stay quietly in Jinn’s shadow.
Enter bad boy Nathan Baird who falls for Jinn and gradually steals her away from Ruby, and the cosy family unit is no more. This is Ruby’s time to come out of her shell and fend for herself.
Parallel to all this is the news story of the growing number of local girls being murdered thus foreshadowing trouble ahead. There are plenty of suspects and the narrative structure works well to build towards the climax. One criticism is that the sometimes sophisticated narrative doesn’t quite fit with that of the voice of a disadvantaged 15-year-old girl, but there are some teenage colloquialisms. There are also some cultural references which will be lost on today’s 14-plus reader, so some clever wit is rather wasted, for example, the use of the word Molotov as a name for a popular drink!
It is a somewhat bleak story but there is optimism too that lets the reader know that out of bad can come good.
ISBN-10: 0747599920