Dionne

Dionne, a 16-year old girl, is the eldest of the two Braithwaite sisters. She is an independent and rebellious girl who takes after her mother. When she and Phaedra are forced to spend the summer in Bird Hill with their grandmother, she is much more deeply affected by this than her sister. Dionne wants nothing more than to be a part of a normal family with normal friends and a normal life, but the circumstances she finds herself in do not provide her with any of those things. She does not feel a strong connection to Barbados in spite of her family's history on the island, and would much rather live in the modern city that is New York than the old-fashioned and monotonous island town that is Bird Hill.

When Dionne and Phaedra's father leaves them and their mother takes ill, much of the day to day...