Sisterland

Reviews

Most people I know who have read anything by Curtis sittenfeld would read anything else the woman wrote, me included...Suddenly, trivial details become exquisite insights into class, entitlement, love and your place in the world...Fans will instantly be swept along by Sittenfeld's confident, page-turning writing and sharp eye. A joy to read...[for] Sittenfeld's ability to get under the skin of complicated, contradictory characters, capturing the anxieties, challenges and compromises of everyday life, love and parenthood so that ... you will find yourself nodding at the day-to-day dynamics and thinking, "Yes, that's exactly how it is." Dazzlingly original, this absorbing book, which is at heart about family ties, fizzes with energy and will grip you to the last page. Will this be a novel turning on supernatural powers and a natural disaster or something else altogether? Without giving the end away one can say that it is more than anything a wonderful anatomy of family life. Engrossing. A work of psychological genius and has a wonderful twist at the end...a literary pageturner...There's a fizzing, daring originality to Sisterland that draws you in and takes your breath away. Engagingly messy mixture of the comic and the sombre...a beautifully delicate way of describing both familial and conjugal love. Curtis Sittenfeld has a knack for capturing characters so vividly it's uncanny...brilliantly evokes small-town Eighties adolescence...the gripping denouement is expertly carried out. Wise and empathetic, this is a book with a great sense of humour and an even bigger heart. Sittenfeld's debut Prep was one of the best novels about adolescence written this century, and it is here, when dealing with the competitve world of teenage girls, that Sittenfeld is at her best in Sisterland...Like Kate Akinson with her recent Life After Life, Sittenfeld is a reliably realistic (if slightly dreamy) novelist who has here tackled a somewhat far-fetched concept outside her normal range and displayed impressive comfort in doing so. Expand reviews