Seventeen-year-old Isadora, or Ia, has just lost her older sister, Eleni, to a pulmonary embolism in “The Weight of One Pomegranate,” by Brynne Rebele-Henry (Soho Teen 2026).
Ia’s parents are too devastated to help their remaining child through her grief, so she moves into her uncle’s place in Brooklyn, a place Eleni had lived while going to art school.
Ia’s friend Ani, an aspiring concert violinist, is her sounding board and support, which is good, but Ia misses her talented big sister. The two shared a penchant to lecture each other on obscure subjects such as the maggot that Eleni expertly sketched, saying that the hatchlings help decompose a body. Ia remarks, “my sister spent most of her short life thinking about all the different ways to leave it.”
In her grief, Ia describes how she means to cook but forgets to turn the stove on. She worries that Ani will realize that she’s a ghost of herself, “becoming incomplete” and invisible.
In a lengthy flashback, we see Eleni being frustrated by Ia’s middle school obsession with facts and a book that describes and names 70 sex positions ranked from best to worst. Eleni blurts out a warning to her sister not to mention these positions — “The Starfish” or “The Crepe” — in school, let her classmates think she’s too weird. Thinking back, Ia is mortified that she was a burden to her big sister. She comes to believe that the stress she caused her sister caused the embolism that killed her.
Ia knows that Eleni had a friend, Cazi, whom Ia has never met. She finds Eleni’s journal and an address for Cazi. They meet up at the Bosnian Cultural Center where Cazi works. Ia knew that Eleni and Cazi took a trip to Bosnia, but Eleni never brought Cazi home. She thinks it’s because her big sister was embarrassed by her eccentric, spaced-out parents and even by herself.
Cazi assures Ia that Eleni loved her and was proud of her brilliance. Ia learns that Cazi and Eleni’s relationship went deeper than friendship, just as Ia is exploring her deepening relationship with Ani. But does Ani feel the same way? Ia is terrified.
This is a coming-of-age story, a story of discovering her sexuality, but most importantly, it’s a story of grief told with insight and poetry.
Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of the award-winning ‘Josephine,’ ‘Lift as You climb,’ ‘Loving vs. Virginia’ and ‘Struttin’ With Some Barbecue,’ all signed and for sale Jane Addams Book Shop in downtown Champaign. She teaches community classes at Parkland College. Find out more at talesforallages.com.
