Chicago Blues

by Julie Reece Deaver

Lissa Hastings has a big problem. Her mother, who used to be a semi-well-known cabaret singer, has now become a very well known alcoholic who realizes that she can't take care of Lissa's eleven-year-old sister Marnie any more. She tells Lissa that if she can't trick Marnie into leaving home and going to live with her, she's going to turn Marnie over to Social Services.
Lissa doesn't know how she's going to handle becoming a single parent overnight. She's the youngest student at a prestigious art school in Chicago, and if it weren't for the miniature rooms that she's been lucky enough to sell to collectors, she'd have practically no money at all. What she doesn't know yet is that having her high-spirited younger sister come and live with her is going to be one of the richest experiences in her life.
Chicago Blues is a funny and heartwarming story about two sisters trying to make a life together in the big city.

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction

192 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1995

Reviews

[Amber the Human · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not at all sure that if you gave an 11 year old to her 17 year old sister who is an early university student studying art because their mom is an alcoholic and their dad is on the road playing music that this is actually how things would turn out - but it's an entertaining and short read and enjoyable enough. Especially since the narrating character creates miniature rooms, which is pretty neat. I have two more books of this author's to go and - can you believe it - none of the five libraries I have cards to carry them, so I ordered them cheap off of Amazon to fill out my free shipping need. I'll get to them ... eventually, but I am notorious for not reading books I own.

[Brian · Rating 1 out of 5]

There were just things I didn't like about it more because of personal preference than how well it was written.