The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Johnson, Daisy. Sisters. Riverhead Books, 2020.

In Daisy Johnson's new novel, Sisters, is written from both the first and third person points of view, and divided into a series of patchwork sections and chapters. The narrative shifts back and forth between past and present, enacting the characters' work to remember what strange things have predated their stay at the family's beach house.

Sisters July and September have been inseparable since birth. Though the girls are nothing alike, their identities become increasingly entangled as they grow up. After their father, Peter, dies, their mother, Sheela, struggles to understand her daughters. She worries that September, the fiercer of the two, is too much like Peter, and will hurt July. The closer she tries to get to the girls, the more September bars her from their insular dynamic. It is only after Sheela begins drawing the girls into her fantastical children's books that she feels capable of holding onto them.

Because of how close the girls are, they are unable to make friends. They live inside their own world of games and inventions. Sheela often wonders if they are locking one another inside childhood, and fears how unkind their classmates are to them. When the girls are 10 and 11, July forms a crush on a boy named Ryan. Jealous, another classmate, Lily, starts texting July pretending to be Ryan. July secretly sends him a topless selfie. The next day, the bullies have spread the photo around school. Furious, September starts several fights in defense of her sister. After her suspension is up, September insists they stage a fight with the unkind girls on the old tennis girls to get their revenge.

In the narrative present, September and July move to the family Settle House with Sheela. Something has happened at school, but July cannot remember what. She just knows that September is annoyed, and Sheela blames them for the event. While at the house, Sheela locks herself in her bedroom, rarely conversing with the girls. Though September is moody, she and July continue their normal games. September insists that July do everything she say, and follow all of her whims and antics, despite July's fearful nature. As the weeks continue, the Settle House seems to come more alive, moving and breathing and making eerie inexplicable noises. September also becomes moodier and increasingly distant.

One night the girls go to a beach party with a local boy named John, who July likes. During the party, July gets drunk and watches September have sex with John. She becomes convinced that witnessing the scene has made her vicariously lose her virginity too. The next day, when she asks September why she slept with the boy she liked, September acts dismissive. Her demeanor worsens in the hours and days to come. July keeps trying to get her attention, win her forgiveness, but September barely acknowledges her. Then one day John visits. Much to July's confusion, he insists on seeing July, and not September. July has sex with him, and then asks if he wants to see September. When he says he has never met her, July grows angry and knocks him unconscious.

In the day following, memories overwhelm July. She struggles to keep the tennis courts out of her mind. Eventually she remembers what has happened. The day of the fight, she and September ran out to the courts in a violent storm. Too scared to follow, July watched as her sister ran around the courts in the rain. Suddenly, a tree uprooted, knocked the floodlights, and electrocuted September. July then realizes September has been dead for months. She has only been pretending that September is alive to cope with her grief.

She tells Sheela that she now knows her sister is dead. With her mother's help, July discovers who she is without September. She pursues a degree and a life outside her sisterhood, and thinks of her sister often.