Paloma was a 12 year old orphan living at the Little Miracles Girls' Home in Sri Lanka. She had been born there, just like her closest friend, Lihini. The two were as close as sisters, both sharing a passion for reading and having lighter skin than all of the other girls.
Fast-forward some 18 years and Paloma is now an aimless young woman, estranged from her parents and subletting a room in her apartment to a young Indian man named Arun who has just come to America, while making extra money selling worn articles of her clothing to pervs on the internet. She is on antidepressants and has undergone years of therapy to overcome events that happened when she was a child, yet she still finds herself haunted by a ghost called Mohini.
Back at the orphanage, Lihini claimed to have seen Mohini, a pale, gaunt woman with stringy black hair that would prowl the orphanage grounds late at night. While Mohini was just a ghost story kids would tell, Lihini was adamant that she actually saw her, and was frustrated when her dearest friend didn't believe her. To make matters worse, then the Evanses visited the orphanage and decide to adopt Paloma, since she was reading Wuthering Heights and it happened to be Mrs. Evans' favorite book, although the book was actually Lihini's book and Paloma had only borrowed it.
Despite Paloma's having escaped the orphanage 18 years before, Mohini still haunts her nightmares. Then the unthinkable happens - Arun threatens Paloma with blackmail after finding a letter she had hidden that details some events from her childhood. Once she downs some liquid courage and returns to the apartment to confront Arun, she finds him slumped over their kitchen table, dead by bludgeoning and surrounded by a halo of blood. Naturally, she freaks out, but then she thinks she spots Mohini from her peripheral vision, causing her to race out of the apartment and pass out in the stairwell. When the police are called and they all return to the apartment, there is no sign of Arun whatsoever. Further, she never even knew his last name and since he was an illegal immigrant, the police didn't have much to go on. It's as if he never even existed.
She starts her own investigation of sorts, but everywhere she turns leads to a dead end, until she meets Sam, a young Sri Lankan man who was Arun's friend and co-worker, and the two hit it off. Paloma decides to stay at her parents' home to be on the safe side and there she encounters their nosy neighbor Ida, with whom she spent many an afternoon growing up, as well as the new neighbors across the street, a white guy named Gavin and his seemingly crazy South Asian wife named Appy, who looks a little like Mohini to Paloma.
As Paloma struggles to figure out what may have happened to Arun and more importantly, whether he told her secret to his friend, Sam, things start happening to her such as windows being left open, her shoes showing up at her neighbor's house, and documents and objects being moved from where she left them. As her life becomes more frustrating, she turns to booze time and again, but is the alcohol interacting with her meds to make her feel crazy or is someone gaslighting her? While you might suspect where things are going, let me just say that the explosive ending is quite unexpected and incredible.
That's about all I can say about My Sweet Girl, but this book has more twists and turns then a winding mountainous road. I was glued to the pages and read it in a handful of sittings, not being able to wait to get to the next chapter. I am a white woman and I wasn't sure if I would feel alienated by the book, since it was written from the perspective of a brown woman who has had very different life experiences than me. However, I loved the book, and even though there were many Sinhalese words peppered throughout the story, they were either translated or explained, or I was able to get them by context.
If you are looking for the next great thriller, check out My Sweet Girl. It does have some situations that may be triggering to some people, such as child abuse, self-harm and sexual assault, but they are all handled carefully. I look forward to future books by Amanda Jayatissa. This is a stand-out debut novel. Highly recommended.
