Love Ya Like a Sister: A Story of Friendship

Sheree Haughian, a teacher-librarian with the Dufferin County Board of
Education and former editor with Gage Educational Publishing, is the
author of The Private Journal of Day Applepenny, Prisoner.

Katie Ouriou knew that she would miss her Calgary friends the year she
and her family went to live in Paris. She could not know that she would
be dead four months after beginning her adventure, claimed by a rare
form of leukemia that killed her in a matter of days.

Comforted by the discovery of letters and e-mails to her three closest
friends, the Ouriou family gathered Katie’s correspondence and a dozen
black-and-white photos into a book, edited by young-adult author Julie
Johnston. Katie’s writing contains reflections on family life,
concerns about body image, anxieties about an upcoming school placement
test, and other preoccupations typical of a 16-year-old girl temporarily
removed to an unfamiliar environment. Although the reader does not get
much of a glimpse of Katie’s incoming mail, her responses to Ashley,
Maude, and Heather reveal absolute loyalty and an absence of the
malicious commentary that can sometimes taint adolescent friendship.
Katie’s writing is also infused with the wit and wisdom of a deeply
spiritual person. While relating everyday happenings, Katie also manages
to share her quest for meaning, her philosophy of life, and,
occasionally, a kind of uncanny prescience about her own premature
passing.

Love Ya Like a Sister is a fitting epitaph to an ordinary girl who was
also quite extraordinary. The book will appeal to young women who value
close friendships and believe in the sustaining power of unconditional
love. Recommended.