Review : The Weird Sisters

Posted by on August 26, 2011 3:46 am in 4 stars reads | 3 comments

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
Pages : 320
Genre : Fiction
Stand Alone
My Rating :

What it’s about :

The Andreas sisters have each had their lot of bad luck. When Rose, Bean and Cordy all find themselves at a crossroads of their lives, hoping for something better, their mother’s cancer bring them back home. There they confront their present and their past, as well as their personal relationships with each other.

My Thoughts :

What I want to say is that The Weird Sisters was a lovely read, though I fear it won’t convey my exact feeling of the novel. It was more than lovely, really, and Brown’s writing was one I enjoyed from the first word to the last.

It’s been a while since I have read a novel exploring the dynamics of sisters relationships in such a realistic way! And what’s fascinating is that, even for the reader who doesn’t have a sister, I believe it is easy to relate to the characters. There’s a mix between them of envy and love, admiration and competitiveness, all at the same time, that portrays quite eloquently the complexity of relationships. I think we all have felt these mixed emotions at one time in our lives, if not for a sister maybe for a friend.

Readers who enjoy books about books will find their joy in this novel, too. The sisters’ father, a professor of Shakespeare who named his daughters accordingly, is a strong presence in the book, even though we don’t see that much of him. His influence is everywhere, from the plays the sisters would organize as kids to the books they pick when they get a few minutes for themselves.

I’ll admit I was a bit confused by the voice at first. It’s a first-person plural narration, which means you never really know who’s saying what, exactly. But once I got used to it, I felt it really made sense with the story, the sisters being so linked together that their bond is, in a way, telling their story. It conveyed strongly the emotions, from tragedy to comedy, and I couldn’t have asked for more.

This was such a delectable read, even more than I thought so after reading the last page. The sisters were surprisingly present for a while in my mind, and in the end I think I can easily say The Weird Sisters was one of my favorite reads of 2011.

3 Comments

  1. I can’t believe I haven’t read this one yet. From the sisters’ relationships to the book chatter, everything about this book is calling to me.

  2. I loved this book so much, and actually got the chance to meet Eleanor Brown and pester her for a sequel. She is a very nice and surprisingly funny lady, and The Weird Sisters is hopefully just the first of many, many great offerings to come from her. This was a wonderful and very enthusiastic review by the way!

  3. I am so glad that you enjoyed this one. I agree that the narrative voice was a bit weird and frustrating since you couldn’t ever figure out who it was that was supposed to be talking (at one point I thought that maybe there was a fourth sister who would be later revealed!), but I didn’t find that it detracted all that much since the book itself was so much fun. I loved how literary it was. It was quirky, but in all the best ways.

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  1. The 2011 recap : the best of the best! « The Infinite Shelf – A Book Blog - [...] The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown : Though the setting itself was something we’ve often seen before, The Weird…

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