The three Andreas sisters are named after Shakespearean heroines by their father, an academic scholar who communicates with them almost exclusively in verse. Yes, the sisters acknowledge that their family is a bit “weird” and the drama of family ties that both bind and cut is the stuff of this novel.
Written in an interesting first-person plural narrative, each of the 23 chapters is written in the voice of one sister.
The sisters: Rose, Bean and Cordy (Rosalind, Bianca and Cordelia) love reading (one might even say they live to read) but find that real-life doesn’t always neatly correspond to a well-written plot.
Living together once again unexpectedly as adults when their mother has cancer surgery, each sister is conscious and unconscious of how they each live out both the characteristics of their Shakespearean namesakes as well as their birth order (older = responsible, middle = overachiever, youngest = perpetual baby/outsider).
I enjoyed the delicious dialogue but found the ending a bit too tidy for my taste.
Putnam, 2011, 320 p.
No comments:
Post a Comment