The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I found myself without an audio book for my commute to work and needed something quick. I found this at the library and, while I might have passed on it under normal circumstances, decided to give it a try. The novel centers around the lives of three sisters. Two have arrived back in the small town they grew up in after seeking greener pastures and getting themselves in trouble. One lived in New York and embezzled money from her employer to buy clothes and live the glamorous life. The other was a drifter by nature just going wherever the wind blew. The wind blew her into a one-night-stand and pregnancy. The third sister never left her small town, is a professor at the local college (where her dad also teaches), and has a finance who has left for Oxford and wants her to come with him but she doesn't want to leave. The sisters learn that their mother has cancer and are handling that while ignoring their own problems.

The characters were well developed and interesting. The family dynamic was interesting as well. Their father is a professor specializing in Shakespeare. The daughters are named after characters (i.e. Rosalind, Bianca, and Cordelia). He communicates with them using lines from various plays and sonnets and they use them as well. The most interesting thing about the book was that it is told in first-person-plural. This is the only book I've ever read from this point of view. It was told as if the sisters were all one collective narrator. It took some time to adjust to the narrator inhabiting the minds of three people. After I was adjusted, I realized it was perfect. They were so interconnected as siblings, it made sense to tell their story as if they were one multifaceted person.



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