The Weird Sisters

I have decided not to berate you with this week’s reading of teen lit and instead I give you an adult novel. It truly is a miracle. This week that book was The Weird Sisters, chosen for its references to Shakespeare. I'm simply starved for Him these days and I'll take His words in any form.

The story is about three sisters: Rosalind, Bianca, and Cordelia.  Named by their father, an eccentric Shakespearean scholar, they are raised in a world filled with books and chaos. After years of living drastically different lives, each sister returns home under the pretense of caring for their sick mother, but really they are just looking for a place to escape their past. As they reunite in their family home they are forced to face not only their secrets but themselves.

The opening caption is “See, we love each other. We just don’t happen to like each other very much,” and that is when I knew I would love this book. These sisters know everything about each other and yet, they don’t know one another at all. They are both distinctly different, but still exactly the same.  These diverging statements show how the book stays true to the dynamics that make up real families.

But what’s really interesting is the narration that combines the voices of the sisters into one united voice. I've never seen this done before, but the effect offered up an accurate portrayal of who they are especially in relation to each other.

Another feature I loved about this book is how often they refer to Shakespeare. They proudly claim "our family has always communicated its deepest feelings through the words of a man who has been dead for almost four hundred years." This fact leads to the characters throwing out lines from his plays, not as a cheap trick by the author to develop legitimacy, but in habit. Their lives are so consumed by literature that they can't contain it.

It’s nerdy, but I want my kids to do this. Heaven help them in middle school.

Overall, this was an easy read that I enjoyed. Will I buy it? Maybe not, but I will remember it.  I may love books that have swooping adventure that snags your heart and makes it beat at all speeds, but there is something to be said about a book like this one that focuses on developing character relationships.

Rating: 3/5

-Lou