In what way does Emma identify with Mary-Evelyn in the novel, Hotel Paradise?

Like Mary-Evelyn Devereau, Emma is twelve-years-old girl. She too was rejected by those who were supposed to love her. Having a dead father, an emotionally remote older brother, and an overworked, distracted mother, Emma sees herself as occupying Mary-Evelyn's unenviable role of "scapegoat," the uncherished family figure toward whom unmerited blame is consistently directed. These are the powerful feelings which fuel her determined quest to answer the riddles surrounding the death of the long-dead girl with whom she oddly shares so much.