The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
Struggling Sisters
Wednesday, April 10, 2013 is National Sibling Day, a day to
celebrate brothers and sisters, good or bad, the ones we grew up with, our best
friends, our worst enemies. You know the
old saying: “You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you
can’t pick your friend’s nose.” That’s
pretty much the same with family. You
can’t pick your family. In my case, I
was blessed with two wonderful sisters/friends I wouldn't trade for
anyone. But that may not always be the
case for everyone.
The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown is about three sisters who
move back home to care for their mother who has breast cancer. Rose is the oldest and had already moved back
to tend to both aging parents, whether they needed help or not. She’s the
mother hen, the one who takes control, the one who willingly and begrudgingly heaps
responsibility on her own shoulders. Bianca, aka Bean, is the middle sister.
She’s a self-centered thirty-year old who greedily sucks up attention much like a smoker
inhales a cigarette. She also a thief, an
embezzler. But wait! There’s more. You’ll have to read about her
other alluring attributes, but I will tell you that I would vote her “least
likely to choose as a friend.” She irked
me. Finally, there’s the twenty-seven-year-old baby, Cordelia. Cordy is a free spirit, a nomad, a wanderer.
She’s also pregnant, something she picked up along her travels.
The sisters are so different that they don’t always get
along. Brown writes, “See, we love one another.
We just don’t happen to like one another very much.”[i] While the differences grate on their
relationships, they are all bound by one thing; they love books. They grew up
reading anything and everything. Books
are like oxygen and they will pick up any book just as long as they’re reading.
Their dad is a professor of English who has devoted his life to Shakespeare. He
only speaks Shakespearean, a language which is somehow endearing to the
girls.
All three sisters are named after Shakespearean characters, and the “weird
sisters” refers to the witches in Macbeth.
The good news is, you don’t have to be a Bard fan to like
this book. It’s about the sister
dynamics and their individual struggles. I wasn’t so sure I was going to like
the book, since I cannot truly relate to any of the characters. But I did like it, probably for just that
reason. It brought me into an unfamiliar world. I think the novel would be a
good candidate for a book club selection, because the discussion could center
not only around sisters in general, or these particular sisters, but also about
each of their personalities.
Happy Reading,
Annette
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