6: The Weird Sisters

By: Eleanor Brown
Finished: March ?
Pages: 369

I bought this book at Book People in Austin, because I can't go to that bookstore and not buy something. This was a New York Times bestseller, which seemed like a good thing, and the tag line "See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other very much." made me giggle.
I did, however, think that it was going to be more, well, Shakespeare-y? I mean, yes, there were lots of quotes from Shakespeare, thanks to the scholarly father, but I wanted a little bit more thematic connection and less superficial chick lit. I finished it, but mostly because I felt obligated, and I mean, it wasn't terrible. Definitely not my cup of tea.
That is not to say, however, that there were no redeeming qualities, regardless of the fact that they weren't followed through in a way that I would have liked.
"Our family's vices-disorder and literature-captured in evening tableau. We were never organized readers who would see a book through to its end in any sort of logical order. We weave in and out of words like tourists on a hop-on, hop-off bus tour."

What really irritated me the most was that half the time I couldn't figure out exactly who was narrating the book, since in regards to the sisters it was sometimes from one specific sister's point of view, but at other times a weird "our" and "we" as if all of them were speaking at once that made me want to throw things. It certainly kicked me out of the narrative in a way that present tense never does.

A few other good things:
"She didn't think about God a lot. None of us did. He was just there if we needed him. Kind of like an extra tube of toothpaste under the sink."
Though, let's be honest, do you see what I mean? Who the hell is talking?
One of the sisters talking about how she broke up with a boyfriend after he asked her how many books she read in a year, and her reply was "A few hundred"
"How do you have time?" he asked, gobsmacked.
She narrowed her eyes and considered the array of potential answers in front of her. Because I don't spend hours flipping through cable complaining there's nothing on? Because my entire Sunday is not eaten up with pre-game, in-game, and post-game talking heads? Because I do not spend every night drinking overpriced beer and engaging in dick-swinging contests with the other financirati? Because when I am waiting in line, at the gym, on the train, eating lunch, I am not complaining about the wait/staring into space/admiring myself in available reflective surfaces? I am reading!
"I don't know," she said, shrugging.
This conversation, you will not be surprised to know, was the impetus for their breakup...Because despite his money and his looks and all the good-on-paper attributes he possessed, he was not a reader, and, well, let's just say that is the sort of nonsense up with which we will not put." (78)

It's witty and amusing, and touching at times, but I got tired of the sisters, and I got tired of their problems, and I just think that I am just not the kind of reader that these sort of books are written for. And that's okay.

Good Reading,
Caitlin