Book ten: The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

Note: I am not done with this book yet. I keep running into these sentences and their awkwardness is driving me crazy so I have to blog about it. It is distracting me from the story line. The author is writing a third-person narrative but she is using the first-person possessive case. Wtf? For example:

The last of the sunlight drifted through the window, illuminating the lines on her face, and Bean was surprised, as she always was when she came home, by how our parents were aging.

Writers, of course, have freedom to write however they wish but I can't quite figure out a reason why she made this choice. I mean, my parents are also aging but, um, I'm not part of the story line. I have been removed from it by her choice to write a third-person narrative. I am vexed but I shall read on.

UPDATE: Okay, so I'm done with this book. I really enjoyed the story. It is about three sisters who make their way home - technically, it doesn't sound as if one ever left her hometown - at the same time their mother learns she has cancer. Their father is a professor at a small posh university. He spends his time speaking in Shakespearean quotes when his nose isn't buried into the latest book. Their mother is the peacekeeper, who is wasting away but ever in good spirits, until such time that the girls' bickering pains her and she makes them go away. The oldest daughter, Rose, is the caregiver. She is the responsible one. Her fiancé has a once in a lifetime job offer that has him temporarily moving to England. Rose is anguished about this as she is not yet ready to leave the proverbial nest, even if it is for the man she loves. Her struggle with this lasts until the final pages. The middle daughter, Bianca (a.k.a. Bean) returns to her hometown disgraced after having been fired for stealing from her employer. She is attractive and polished and the weight of appearing so is doing some serious damage to this woman. She too easily beds men, including her old married professor. She also feels an internal struggle to be a better person, to rise above her past mistakes. This effort is aided by the new handsome pastor. And, finally, there is Cordelia (a.k.a. Cordy), a whimsical, road hippie who has traveled wherever the winds blew her. Finding herself pregnant at 30, she returns home to establish some roots. But the transition from wanderer to homemaker might be far more than she can handle and the call of the road is often intense.

I probably spent more time than I should have trying to place the quotes but am feeling pretty good as it appears I was right about 70 percent of them . (Not bad, I say! Some of them were fairly obscure.) I was definitely feeling connected to these sisters and their interactions with each other and their parents. Having two sisters of my own, I saw definite similarities. There is the first-born, who can do no wrong. There is the middle child, oft overlooked. And there is the baby, who is the favorite.

I would recommend this book to someone who loves literature and a good story. And definitely to anyone who has sisters.

10 down plus 42 to go.