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Monday, June 25, 2012

Eleanor Brown, THE WEIRD SISTERS

Very good debut novel, about three sisters (Rosalind, Bianca, and Cordelia ... Dad's a professor, a Shakespeare expert) who gather to their childhood home in Ohio when their mother is diagnosed with breast cancer. There's something in this book I've never seen before: a first-person plural narrator ... the whole book is told by a "we" (as in weird!), and it works. Rose (the eldest) is predictably reliable and responsible; Bianca ("Bean") the middle (also somewhat predictably) feels invisible, overshadowed by eldest and youngest, and is bad with money; Cordelia is the free spirit whom everyone loves and babies. But for the most part, the book avoids cliches; there's clever dialog and messy lovable characters, as well as lots of Shakespeare, sprinkled throughout in a good way. I read this one in a day.

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