cover image Love YA Like a Sister: A Story of Friendship

Love YA Like a Sister: A Story of Friendship

Katie Ouriou. Tundra Books (NY), $7.95 (208pp) ISBN 978-0-88776-454-7

Johnston (The Only Outcast) pays tribute to Katie Ouriou, a real-life Canadian who died in October 1996 before her 17th birthday, with this collection of Katie's epistles. But much of what appears here seems more suited to those who knew Katie than to a general audience. Katie moves to France with her parents and older sister. The 16-year-old is anxious to start her adventure in a foreign country, but sorely misses her ""homies."" She contacts them regularly (mostly via e-mail), eager to express her (not always positive) impressions of Parisian society and share self-help tips and philosophical quotes she gleans from her spiritual readings (e.g., ""To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are""). Like most adolescent girls, Katie obsesses about her body, remains fanatically loyal to her friends and experiences roller-coaster emotions. It is difficult to ascertain from the letters here, however, how she grows or changes during her three months in Paris. A rare form of leukemia debilitates and kills her within a few days, so she never really knows what's happening to her and therefore has no opportunity to reflect, at least in writing, on her life. Her one-sided dialogue (mostly replies to e-mail messages and notes omitted from this volume) tells only half the story, and brief commentaries from family members (which appear in italicized segments) offer little insight into Katie or her relationships. Ages 10-up. (Apr.)