My Sisters

by: Ann Roth

Published by: Kensington Publishing Corporation (November 4 release)

Reviewed by Michele E. Davis

Margaret, Rose and Quincy Lansing’s mother dies in a car accident at 51 years young. She was a healthy woman, at least physically, who kept a hidden life away from her daughters. She classified each of them into boxes after her husband, who happened to be her high school heartthrob, left her. Margaret was the intellectual one, Quincy the trampy daughter and Rose the perfect homemaker child. They all played their roles very well with their mother.

They mourned her death, but didn’t feel much passion about it. Susan Lansing was a formidable businesswoman and kept a stuffed dog, Suzette, who had meant the world to the old matriarch. She meant so much to her that when the poodle died, Susan took her to a taxidermist and had her preserved for all eternity. She took her places and planned to be buried with her.

The three sisters, with their fitted stereotypes, didn’t get along, and the book is filled with petty anger, fights, and ridiculous disagreements as they rush to clean out a house that had thirty or so years of living in it to be disposed of. The house was in a tiny town called Shadow Falls, a five-hour drive from Seattle, so seemingly somewhere in the upper Northeast.

The problem is we never really get close enough to any of the sisters of the dead Mrs. Lansing to really feel for them as people. The book is very shallow.

This is a shell of a book filled with a lot of malcontented women. The characters lack dimension, would be good for a young teen reader, but not seasoned readers who expect more from their authors.

Armchair Interviews agrees.

Author’s Web site: http://www.AnnRoth.net