Coronavirus Update From New York City: May 14, 2020

Here’s Brendan’s weekly update on how NYC is doing. As you’ll see from his post, while the number of deaths continue to decrease, there’s  a worrisome syndrome effecting children, that we all should be paying attention to.

Blind Injustice

I have now been updating readers on how I’m doing, and how my city is doing, with this coronavirus for about two months now! That time has flown by.

Everyone in my immediate family continues to remain both physically and financially healthy. As for mental health, let’s just say that there is a reason that I often try to limit my news intake, even though I value the importance of knowing what’s going on in my city, state, country, and world.

As for how New York is doing, it’s…complicated.

Deaths continue to go down. It’s still horrifyingly high, but when you consider that the number of deaths per day was in the 700-800 range a few weeks ago, it’s a massive improvement that we now have some days when we have fewer than 200 COVID-19 deaths. Many of the other major indicators, such as hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions…

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The Sullivan Sisters, by Kathryn Ormsbee ~ 4.0 Stars

Tags

Diversity, Dysfunctional Families, LGBTQ, Mystery, Substance Abuse, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: May 26th, 2020

384 Pages

Synopsis: Time changes things.

That painful fact of life couldn’t be truer for the Sullivan sisters. Once, they used to be close, sharing secrets inside homemade blanket castles. Now, life inside the Sullivan house means closed doors and secrets left untold.

Fourteen-year-old Murphy, an aspiring magician, is shocked by the death of Siegfried, her pet turtle. Seventeen-year-old Claire, is bound for better things than her Oregonian hometown—until she receives a crushing rejection from her dream college. And eighteen-year-old Eileen is nursing a growing addiction in the wake of life-altering news.

Then, days before Christmas, a letter arrives, informing the sisters of a dead uncle and an inheritance they knew nothing about. The news forces them to band together in the face of a sinister family mystery…and, possibly, murder.

Coming from a dysfunctional family, I love reading about other’s family woes, and The Sullivan Sisters is a well written combination of one such family and a mystery that will bring them together, or tear them apart.

Each sister’s narrative helps bring them to life and instill a certain amount of sympathy for what each of them has gone through. I do have to say that I thought the story itself was slightly predictable and could have used some more twists and action, but I kept reading because I connected with the sisters.

Overall, I quite enjoyed The Sullivan Sisters. Kathryn Ormsbee, did a wonderful job capturing the voices of each sister, and while I wasn’t surprised by the outcome at the end, it was still an interesting journey getting there. This is the first book I’ve read by the author, but I’ll definitely be looking for future books by her.