Tag Archives: Sisters

Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma

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Synopsis:
Chloe’s always admired her older sister, but when Ruby shows up with a girl who was dead the last time Chloe saw her, Chloe starts to fear that her sister can do anything–absolutely anything–she wants, no matter what Chloe or anybody else thinks about it.

Review:
Both Ruby and Chloe are compelling characters, for completely different reasons, and that’s what makes Imaginary Girls so successful. Ruby is obsessed with Olive, a town buried under a reservoir thanks to some eminent domain shenanigans in the early 20th Century. Chloe fears Olive, because she almost died in the reservoir, saved only by the timely appearance of a rowboat containing the dead body of London, a girl in Chloe’s class. Chloe left town, but when Ruby summons her back for the summer, Chloe is excited–until Ruby shows her London, who isn’t dead. She’s alive–and she shouldn’t be.

This is a wonderfully creepy premise, reminiscent of my favorite author Shirley Jackson, only with a YA touch. Ruby is so alive, such a vibrant and exciting character and it’s easy to see why the world seems to revolve around her. It’s impossible to imagine her as anything other than a beautiful teenager, at the peak of her life and beauty and power. She’s everything every girl wants to be, and Chloe loves that there’s no one on the planet whom Ruby loves the way she loves Chloe. The sisters build a world together, and it’s just about perfect, except for London, whose very existent freaks Chloe out and threatens the world that Ruby has created for them. Even though this is a contemporary story, set in summer sunshine among partying teens, this book is a classic Gothic story that hits all the right notes.

The Island by Elin Hilderbrand

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Synopsis:
In the wake of tragedy, a middle-aged divorcée, her sister, and her two grown daughters retreat to the family home on remote, rustic Tuckernuck Island off the coast of Nantucket, where buried secrets and repressed longings burst to the surface.

Review:
The Island is a book about loss, grief, and longing, with 3 of the main characters haunted by the untimely death of a lover. The main character, Birdie, has survived a divorce after decades of marriage, and has just embarked on her first love affair since the split. Her daughter Chess has just lost her fiancé in a rock climbing accident, after calling off the engagement, and her other daughter Tate has pined for their caretaker since she was 17. Birdie’s sister, India, lost her own husband to suicide and is now faced with a most unorthodox choice. And caretaker Barrett has secrets of his own.

I enjoyed this book even though I felt like the plot elements were all a bit too symmetrical to be believed. I loved the evocation of life on Tuckernuck in its rural simplicity. I got a little tired of all the wealth but in the end it did work for me. It’s a nice relaxing read, perfect for relaxing on the couch nursing Superfast Newborn.

Many thanks to Reagan Arthur Books for the review copy.

Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

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Synopsis:
A quartet of unlikely best friends deal with a post-feminist, post-grad life out of Smith College.

Review:
The appeal of Commencement is in its depiction of Smith College, caught between poles of conservative femininity and radical lesbianism. Each of the four protagonists deals with life issues that have something to do with the plight of the modern women. Their struggles are portrayed with nuance and pathos, but I wondered if the story would have resonated had it been set in a less idiosyncratic place. Only one of the characters–April–really differentiated herself from the other three, who, apart from their differing circumstances, didn’t seem to be all that different. I enjoyed the read but it didn’t blow me away.

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson

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Synopsis:
A slave girl bent on gaining her freedom finds herself embroiled in the furor of the Revolutionary War in 1776 New York City.

Review:
It’s simply perfect, that’s all there is to it. Chains is one of the finest examples of a young adult novel you’re likely to find, from one of the genre’s finest authors, Laurie Halse Anderson. I have been reading YA for almost three decades now and while Anderson’s Speak, a fine, fine novel itself, is a classic of a certain kind of YA novel, Chains is simply a classic. It’s an excellent companion to Witch of Blackbird Pond, another classic that sets history alight thanks to a story that captures readers’ hearts.

Isabel is a slave girl, age 13, promised her freedom on the death of her Rhode Island mistress. But in the absence of papers proving her story, she and her little sister Ruth are sold to a wealthy couple in New York City who are staunch Loyalists amid the brewing American revolution. Isabel hopes to trade the secrets of her household for freedom for her and her sister, and gets caught up in the intrigue with devastating results. Chains takes a lot of risks–it’s not a safe read–but never does Anderson go for cheap exploitation. Even more impressive is the way she weaves history throughout. I have never been particularly interested in the Revolution, but Anderson made every detail compelling, relevant, and alive.

As always, Anderson’s writing is straightforward and evocative. She manages to make Isabel’s voice feel fresh and contemporary without being anachronistic. The period language she uses never distracts or feels quaint. I fell in love with Isabel’s spirit and can’t wait to read the next book in the series, Forge.

In the Woods by Tana French

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Synopsis:
A murder investigation cuts too close to the bone for a detective who was once part of a missing persons case himself.

Review:

The other Sunday, Superfast Husband had to go to Home Depot after church, and since Superfast Toddler would certainly fall asleep in the car, I needed a book to read while listening to her dulcet snores. We stopped into the murder mystery bookshop nearby, where I asked if they could request anyone who loves Barbara Vine, and likes Ruth Rendell but not as much. Something character-based, with a lot of psychology and not too heavy on the forensics. Another customer snatched In the Woods off the shelf and the premise immediately intrigued me.

When Rob Ryan was a boy, he went by the name Adam and lost his two best friends in a missing persons case that was presumed but not proved to be murder. Rob was found with his shoes full of blood and no memory of what happened in the woods. Now, he is a detective on the murder squad and no one but his partner Cassie knows that he was once Adam. When a body is discovered in the very same woods, Rob and Cassie leap at the case, with Rob swearing up and down that his role won’t be compromised by his personal history. At least, until a possible connection emerges.

Tana French is a first-rate writer, crafting gorgeous sentences and exhibiting total mastery over her storytelling. I would rank her more Rendell than Vine, but Rendell at her finest, which is a pretty fine thing. The case itself was fairly workmanlike, once the solution was revealed, but French’s acute perceptions into the pettiness of human nature made for a fascinating read. She develops a complex and emotionally charged relationship between Cassie and Rob, the outcome of which offers just as much suspense as the whodunit angle.

The story is told by Rob in the first person, and while he’s not a standard unreliable narrator, he is fond of explaining himself in a way that both seduces and highlights the flaws in his own self-examination. I was swept away by the voice French created for Rob. He’s a figure both tragic and complicit, and my heart ached for him on every page.

The Sister by Poppy Adams

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Synopsis:
When elderly Ginny’s sister returns home for the first time since she was a girl, old memories surface that threaten Ginny’s carefully ordered existence.

Review:
I’m incredibly thankful for the Queens Library for getting The Sister to me so quickly–I can’t remember the last time I read a book so recently published. The review in the New York Times made me think that it’d satisfy my aching desire for more books like Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale. Gothic intrigue. Family secrets. Opaque narration. Superfast love.

Of course, obtaining a book and actually reading it are two different things these days. We’ve dubbed 8-month-old Superfast Baby “The Path of Destruction,” which makes me wonder how I’m actually writing this blog post. Oh, right–because she’s eating the book, which she pulled off the dining room table onto the floor.

Book rescued. The Path of Destruction slept for both halves of our round-trip subway ride from Queens to Brooklyn and I got to read the whole darn thing in one day. Such a simple pleasure, taken for granted in my childless leisure. I’d forgotten what it treat it is to read a book cover to cover in a day, and The Sister was the perfect book to bring it all back.

The narrative is not quite as twisty as those crafted by my beloved Barbara Vine, but there was more than enough psychological complexity to make up for the lack of plot twists. For the record, I think that plot twists are way overrated and way overused these days–I’m so tired of trying to telegraph the surprise ending. Gothic does not necessarily mean misdirection. Sometimes the creepiest tales are also the most straightforward.

Huh? (Booking through Thursday)

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What’s your favorite book that nobody else has heard of? You know, not Little Women or Huckleberry Finn, not the latest best-seller . . . whether they’ve read them or not, everybody “knows” those books. I’m talking about the best book that, when you tell people that you love it, they go, “Huh? Never heard of it?”

A Candle in Her Room by Ruth Arthur tells the story of several generations of a family haunted by a charismatic and evil doll. It scared me silly as a kid, so of course I read it over and over and over. A large part of the appeal was that the book takes place in England, maybe in Cornwall or Dover, some place with cliffs at any rate, and the characters were named Briony, Dilys, and Dido–all wonderfully exotic to American me.

Not sure whether I’ll introduce it to Bea, or let her discover it on her own… I do have a copy for her. I don’t believe in sheltering children from books, but it’s different when it’s your own child.

The Ghost Writer by John Harwood

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Synopsis:
Having grown up with a controlling, secret-keeping mother, a young man yearns to know his family’s history and meet his letter-writing lover in person, but his journey takes him face to face with madness and murder.

Review:
Thank you, thank you, thank you to Eva for recommending this book!

The Ghost Writer is a straight up Gothic tale, no revisionism here, thank you very much. It’s a tangled labyrinth of memories, letters, and unfinished stories that builds to a creepy, frightening climax that draws upon the best tropes of the genre without losing sight of the story being told. Continue reading →

The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares

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My review of The Last Summer (of You and Me), the new book by Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants author Ann Brashares is up at Blogcritics:

Ann Brashares is the author of the beloved young adult novel The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and its sequels, so it’s not a surprise that in her first novel for grown-ups her adult characters seem reluctant to leave adolescence behind. In The Last Summer (of You and Me), recent college graduate Alice returns for yet another idyllic summer on Fire Island, only to discover that life, in its inevitable way, is moving out – with or without her.

Read the rest here.