Your Reviews of The Sister -- should not contain spoilers

[Read-n-Rider]

4 stars

The Sister is a multi-level novel.  On the surface, it is the story of what happens when 2 sisters are reunited after being apart for nearly 50 years.  This leads to the revelation of family history and the differing perceptions of various events therein, and also to well-kept secrets being finally revealed.  Go a little deeper, and there is the exploration of "nature versus nurture," and the question of free will.  And then, there are the moths.................The chilling conclusion presents more questions than it resolves; this is a book that invites thought, not one that gives the reader all the answers.

Joan

[blkeyesuzi]

4 Stars

A Novel that really makes the reader think and the dialog fly.

Wow, this reader expected just another ordinary book and thankfully found thought-provoking, unique literature. While reading "The Sister", I was so fortunate to encounter dozens upon dozens of unique conversations with others who were reading this unique tome and upon finishing it; I absolutely could not stop thinking about it. This is a novel that brings forth dialog and emotion, and above all, causes the reader to think. We have Poppy Adams to thank for reviving smart literature. She is definitely one to watch.

Other titles I would recommend:

The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty by Sebastian Barry

[mabky]

    The Ties That Bind

3 stars.

Families can make and  break us, and The Sister is a fine example of this.  This book takes you into a family dynamic that leaves you with more questions than answers.  That sometimes is a good thing.  I liked the fact that the story revolved around one sister thinking about her family and all that they were and were not.  Is she reliable or not?  That is what compels you to keep reading. You can't quite figure out what exactly is going on, what went on in the past, and the what will happen in the present. If you like stories that raise more questions, and keep you thinking, this book is for you. 

[GMorrison]

Poppy Adams' The Sister is one excellently creepy book. It opens, as many books do, in a crumbling English estate. Its narrator is an elderly woman, something of a holdover from an previous age, as is done in many books. But from that point on, all bets are off.

I would love to discuss the plot in painstaking detail, but there's really no way I can without spoiling it for you, the potential reader, and I do think you should read this book. Simply put, action is kept to the minimum in The Sister; the bulk of the novel is composed of flashbacks to the narrator's youth and the slice-of-life situations one might imagine would result after two sisters estranged for decades are reunited; all of which builds up to some pivotal choices, events, and outcomes. But oh, these are very well done indeed.

Adams, who worked as a documentary filmmaker before trying her hand as a novelist, brings a cinematographer's sense of pacing, staging, and ambiance to her narrative. Readers are certain that something is going to happen, just not what. Or when. Adams has also performed the neat trick of creating a character reliable in her unreliability (the meaning of this phrase will become clear to anyone who reads the book), as well as penning what could have been a hackneyed ending but with an unusual twist, which it is just killing me not to be able to discuss here.

That said, a caveat: lepidoptery (the study of moths) plays an integral role in The Sister's plot. I actually enjoyed this aspect of the novel quite a bit, as it offered a chance to learn something about a discipline with which I'm not terribly familiar while being entertained by a cracking good story; nevertheless, I can see how those passages might disagree with a reader looking for faster pacing from their novels. But once one stops to think about it, all the talk of moth behavior adds to readers' understanding of the main character in a way that simply would not have been possible otherwise without some other disruptive means (breaking with the narrator's voice or worse yet, the dreaded explanatory epilogue). I found The Sister to be highly enjoyable book that I recommend to anyone looking for a suspenseful read.

[illanna]

I give this book three stars. It had a sort of creepy beginning, that really draws you in, and I liked the narrator's voice. The beginning is very dark and mysterious, and I also found the information about the study of moths fascinating. But ultimately I found the book fairly predictable and sort of flat.

[Frank_n_beans]

4 stars from me.

"The Sister" is an evocative and eerie novel that centers around the relationship between two adult sisters. When these two sisters (who have not seen each other for decades) undertake to reunite, things are not quite as one would expect.

Ms. Adams captivated my attention and drew me in to the dark and ominous world she created. It was difficult for me to put the book down and I often found myself reading ahead of what the book-club schedule dictated.

The novel does heavily focus on moths and the science underlying the moth life-cycle and this was a reason some readers attributed to not enjoying the book. I confess that I did prefer other portions of the book but I did feel that the science added an important element to the story and assisted in character development.

All in all, I think Ms. Adams presents a compelling novel and I think it's a perfect book for a rainy day (don't forget your cup of tea!).

Other books I recommend:

March- Geraldine Brooks
A Year of Wonders- A Novel of the Plague- Geraldine Brooks
A Thousand Splendid Suns- Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseini
Katherine- Anya Seton

[Artistwriter]

4 Stars

Metamorphosis of an unstable kind:

Poppy Adam's debut novel was haunting.  It drew me in slowly building more questions than providing answers- an exercise in imagination.  Ginny's metamorphosis was symbolic, we watched as she was eccentrically passive only to take perceived control of her life at the end.  I will read this novel again and gleen more from a second look.  Both sisters' character kept the reader with two feet planted firmly in midair. 

Recommended reading:

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Girl in a Swing by Richard Adams

Life Sentences by Alice Blanchard

The Dark Room by Minette Walters

Message Edited by Artistwriter on 04-01-2008 09:23 PM

[READERJANE]

I would give this book 5 stars.

The book starts out, seeming on one path, and takes the reader down a different one altogether. The story is beautifully written and I  found the characters to be well written. The relationship between the sisters is dysfunctional but the reader cannot put the book down. I found the twist at the end was one that I never saw coming. This is an author that I will look for more work from. Poppy Adams has written a beautiful story.

[Clevegal42]

I'm giving this book 2 stars.  It would have gotten 2.5, but no half stars and I don't think it was good enough for 3.

I was excited to read this book, but it never really caught my full attention.  It was a slow start, and I still don't think I know the whys of the visit from the sister.  It was a good representation of a lonely somewhat paranoid lady as the narrator, but it was hard to know if some of the things that happened in the flashbacks were real or tainted by the thoughts/musings/ramblings of her older self.  Since I couldn't figure that out, too many questions were unanswered for me because one of two answers could apply and that's not good enough for me.  I actually thought that my copy was missing some pages, but it wasn't - there just weren't enough final answers for me.  I like stories that make you think but then give you the answer, even if it is "wrong" i.e. not the one I had in mind.

That being said it was well written although I could have done with less details on the moths.  I think it was all in there to demonstrate what the focus of Ginny's life was and to illustrate how lonely she really was, but that point could have definitely been made with less details.  Others may like that, I did not.

I think the best fan of this book would be someone that likes a story with twists and turns, surprises and a platform for your open interpretation.  If you like a story with twists and turns, surprises and a final answer, this book might not be for you.

[3M]

This is the review I posted on my website here.

Arthur: How can you tell a cannibal?
Vivi: Well, they’re the only ones left, silly.
Arthur: No, before they’ve eaten the others.
Vivi: Oh, that. They’ve just got a look about them.

I received this arc from the Barnes and Noble First Look Book Club. It is so wonderful to be a part of this program because the authors are also on the message boards and will answer questions from readers. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed reading Poppy Adams’ responses to the questions posed. I will definitely be reading more of her work when it comes out. The Sister is her first novel.

Originally titled The Time of Emergence, and called The Behaviour of Moths in the UK, The Sister is a book where, after reaching the end, the reader may be left with more questions unanswered than answered. There are multiple interpretations that could be made about several different occurrences in the book. For me, that’s what makes this story so fascinating. I know that may be more of a frustration to some, though.

Vivien (Vivi) and Virginia (Ginny) are two sisters who grew up in a countryside mansion with lepidopterist ancestors. Their maternal grandfather and father were both lepidopterists, and Ginny becomes a lepidopterist. What is a lepidopterist? It’s a person who studies moths and butterflies. There is much discussion of the behavior of moths in this book, but it is an essential aspect of the story. While reading and after finishing the book, I realized many parallels between the behavior of moths and the behavior of the characters in the novel. This is a book I’ll probably re-read at some point to catch all the connections between the two.

Vivi and Ginny have been separated for decades, and the reasons why become apparent as the story unfolds. Very different from each other, Vivi is outgoing and leaves home for London at a young age, while Ginny is an introvert and a homebody. In fact, as the novel opens, we get the sense that Ginny hasn’t left her home for many, many years. Vivien decides to come back to the house, stating to Ginny that as sisters, they should spend their old age together. The entire novel only takes place over a few days, but as each day unfolds, we are also given glimpses from the past and why they have been separated for so long. All of this is told from Ginny’s perspective, though, and as Ginny and Vivi discuss their history together, they both realize that they saw their childhood in distinctly different ways. These differences are crucial to figuring out what is going on in the story.

What is going on in the story? I don’t want to tell you much, because it has a really good, creepy, gothic, Hitchcock feel to it that is better left to finding out by reading the story. If you don’t mind not having everything wrapped up in the end, and if you like having multiple interpretations of a storyline, you’ll love this book. I really enjoyed it, and the more I think about it, the more I love it.

2008, 275 pp.
Rating: 4.5/5

[AllieK]

Title: "Unsure about The Sister?"

I was taken in by the first chapters of the book where we find one sister waiting for the other to arrive, but slowly the book lost me through all the science of the moths. I wanted to follow the mystery of the families lives, but it kept getting thrown in with moth talk. The book did grab me toward the 2nd half of the book and had me until the end, where I felt I was left hanging. For a first novel, I give Poppy Adams good marks for her characters and story, but she left to many questions for the reader to have to answer on their own. I wanted to like this book, but in the end it wasn't my type of book.

Rating: 3 stars

[wendyroba]

RATING: Five (5) Stars

'There’s rarely a sole cause for the separation of lives. It’s a sequence of events, an inexorable chair reaction where each small link is fundamental, like a snake of upended dominoes. -From The Sister, page 5-'

Poppy Adam’s debut novel, The Sister, begins with an elderly woman waiting for her sister to arrive home after a 50 year absence. Ginny has lived her entire life in the family house - a broken down, monolith tucked into the countryside of England. She is a recluse who peers from behind her windows at the neighbors and lives an obsessively ordered existence bordering on paranoia. Vivi, on the other hand, is socially outgoing - an older woman who looks ten years younger. Years earlier,Vivi separated herself from her family and appeared to never look back. But now she has returned and this event will become the catalyst which allows Ginny’s long repressed grievances to emerge.

The novel occurs over a four day period and is narrated from Ginny’s point of view. As Ginny remembers her childhood with Vivi, the reader begins to understand the source of her neuroses. Ginny’s father, Clive, was a famous lepidopterist and Ginny assisted him with his obsessive study of moths. The moths become another character in the book, which in my opinion elevated the novel from a so-so Gothic tale to an exceptional first work.

The Sister is about mental illness, addiction and the dynamics of family, but it is also about nature vs. nurture and whether or not it is choice or biology which dictates our behavior. Adams uses the moth as a symbol to underline these concepts.

'I can mimic the scent of a flower so that a moth will direct itself towards the scent, and kills itself. Each time each moth will kill itself. It is this constancy that makes them a scientific delight - you do not need to factor in a rogue element of individuality. - From The Sister, page 55-'

The Sister is a spellbinding work, one which immerses the reader completely in the story and builds to a relentless and shocking end. Adam’s development of Ginny’s character is like a slow train gathering speed and momentum. The sense of doom, of things unraveling provides the tension for the novel.

Readers who like all loose ends tied up may struggle with this book. Adams allows for reader interpretation of certain events, and Ginny’s reliability as a narrator is questionable. The Sister will appeal to readers who like to work their way through a web of information, untangling it as they go. It is a thoughtful novel which explores the darker side of human nature.

Highly recommended.

[MelissaW]

4-stars -- Recommended

After a slow start, I found myself caught up in Ms. Adams' debut novel.  While I normally read books for their enjoyment factor and don't necessarily read them with the aim of analyzing every action of the characters, I found myself constantly rethinking my opinions of Ginny and Vivi and how their lives evolved as they did.  Ms. Adams' does a very good job of weaving the sisters' memories of the past into their present lives.  It is interesting to see how Ginny and Vivi see the same events in totally different lights.  As the story progresses, Ginny is forced to rethink some of her earlier memories and how they impacted her life.  How might her life have been different if events had occurred differently?

Ms. Adams' use of moths and how she interwove the moths with the behaviors of the family members was neatly done.  Some of her scientific descriptions about the moths and their development were a little too indepth for my tastes.

Ms. Adams' does not "spoon feed" the reader everything about this book, but makes you think.  If you don't like having everything handed to you, you will enjoy this book.  If you like to think and draw your own conclusions, this book is for you.

Other books that I would recommend:

• Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen
• Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

[budpincess420]

2-stars -- Disappointing

More than Disappointing

Giving 2-stars is being nice. "The Sister" by Poppy Adams was a waste of my time. It was captivating, mostly because I kept reading because with every page turned, I'd tell myself it was going to get better. Next thing I knew, 200 or so pages went by and I hadn't fallen in love with the plot, or the overwelming amount of useless information that I pray I can push out of my head. A few of the characters I liked, but they were buried to the neck in bugs, or in this case; catapillars. If you are looking for a scientific report on every stickin detail of bugs, then this book is for you, except occasionally there are some paragraphs about some people, with some problems, doing something. If you are looking for a compelling story about family, the loss of loved ones, and the insanity that comes with family, then don't bother reading this book, because it is only a tease of a glimps into the of lives of Ginny and Vivian.

[mrstreme]

In her debut novel, The Sister, former BBC producer Poppy Adams used her photographer’s eye and mind to conjure up a unique tale of two sisters, Ginny and Viv, and their lifetime of secrets that tore their family apart. The story opened with Ginny, in her seventies, waiting for the arrival of her sister, Vivien, who she has not seen in almost fifty years. Once Vivien arrived, the reader must decipher between a past and present story line that unravels the disastrous family secrets – and keeps the reader wondering which sister is in the right until the last few chapters.

The Hitchcock-weird feeling of the characters can be downright bone chilling. Ginny narrated the story, and throughout her tale, little idiosyncrasies cropped up about Ginny, like her wearing of two wristwatches – one standard and one digital – that she meticulously checked for accuracy against her bedroom alarm clock. Or the drawer full of cannabis tea bags that she maintained to help her with arthritic pain but never liked to use because it caused a lack of symmetry in the drawer. Adams “spoon fed” Ginny’s personality quarks to the reader throughout The Sister, resulting in the nagging hunch that Ginny may not be a reliable narrator.

Then Adams, through Ginny’s narration, drew a picture of Vivien that was equally unsettling. Vivien was selfish and attention seeking, often manipulating her relationship with Ginny for her own gains. Ginny had a major inferiority complex with her sister, and the way Vivien was depicted, one could see why: smart, beautiful and full of creative ideas. You never get the sense though that Viv was a good person (through Ginny’s eyes), but the reader cannot doubt the love between them.

The Sister has the making of a great novel, especially for readers of Gothic literature: an old house, eccentric characters and a secret to be discovered. However, it has an obvious flaw – The Moths. The sisters’ father, Clive, was an expert in moths and taught his craft to Ginny when she was a teenager. Throughout the first half of the novel, The Moths are major characters. The reader learned about different types of moths, their importance to scientific research, how one caught them, how to kill them, how they transform from a caterpillar into a moth and what’s inside the cocoon during the transformation process.

All of this scientific knowledge took up pages of the story. While it was well written, it bogged the story down. When the reader finished, you can see how and why moths were important to The Sister’s plot, but perhaps Adams could have arrived at this point in different way. I almost abandoned The Sister because of the darned moths – and though I am glad I did not, I still have to shake my head about why they took up such a prominent place during the first half of the novel.

Once you get past The Moths, the suspense and mystery built masterfully into a real page-turner. I would recommend The Sister to readers with that disclaimer: have patience during the first half of the book and then prepare to be awed during the second. Adams made a promising debut, and I look forward to her future stories.

[jmcnaughton]

I'll give"The Sister" three stars - maybe 3-1/2!

I couldn't put the book down.  At one point, I knew what was going to happen, but I still had to keep reading.  I enjoyed it much more than the HAR - even though I'm not sure why.  The idea behind both novels was similar...an elderly woman telling her story in the first person.  There was mystery and intrigue in both.  I think "The Sister" tied the end up a little more neatly which fits my personality a little better, too.

[nadine1]

2 and a half stars

Too Many Moths

This dysfunctional family drama unravels very slowly.  Narrated by an introverted recluse, the chapters seem filled with painstaking description – of the creepy house, of the estranged relationship between the diametrically opposite sisters, and the nature of moths.  If you are intellectually stimulated by drawing your own conclusions to unanswered questions, delving into tedious descriptions about scientific information, or reading about disturbing human behavior, then you will enjoy this book.

[lamorgan]

Rating: 3 stars

I'm glad I had the opportunity to read "The Sister." Unlike many of the other readers in the group, I found myself becoming very sympathetic to Ginny, one of the two main characters in the story. I also found I didn't particularly care for her sister Vivi. I found her to be rather heartless and self-serving. (Of course, she did grow up to be the somewhat 'spoiled' daughter.)

This is not a book I would normally pick up off the shelf, which is one reason why I enjoy the First Look Book Club. It gives readers the chance to try a book that is somewhat different than what they normally read.

I plan to someday reread this book for pleasure's sake ... not having to analyze it for a book group, per se.

[lovesagoodbook]

5 Stars

I loved this book. I couldn't put it down. It was an interesting read full of all kinds of twists and turns. As you read the book you have no idea where Ginny is going to take you next from her past. I love the way she describes her life growing up with her sister and her parents.  I also found it interesting the way Ginny shared the same interest as her father with moths.  This book in my opinion is an excellent read. 

[rosemaryb]

I give The Sister 3 Stars. This book reminded me of a Bette Davis movie thriller. It had that old fashioned dark kind of creepy noir feel that the old movies used to thrill viewers.

Although I had the desire to finish the book, I found myself reluctant to pick it up in my free time. While I was interested in the descriptions the author gave of the characters and the house, I was turned off by all the detail about the moths. I don't think the author needed to go into the subject quite as much as she did. I found myself trying to skip through all that description.

The author did a good job in unveiling the personalities of the two sisters from the time they grew up together, attended school, and eventually ended up together in their old age. I do wish the author gave us more of an explanation of what was going on with Ginny.

I belong to a book club and I wouldn't recommend this book. It contained a few surprises but I think the author didn't quite make a connection with the reader. And you need some kind of connection to keep the reader interested. I wasn't sure I really cared what happened to these two sisters!