It was an easy enough read 300 pages but I finished it in a day. It didn't wrap up pretty and neat which although I complain about in every book that does that I also find myself complaining when it doesn't do that. In my head it eventually wraps up neater than the author left it. There were some relationships in it I wish had been explored more in depth. I liked all the sisters even the entirely disfunctional ones but I do wish one set of sisters had atleast somewhat of a healthy relationship with each other. I don't have sisters but I like to hold out hope my girls wont be as messed up as all the sisters were in this book. ( )

A novel on family tragedy. Miscommunication and misunderstanding. Then people not understanding their own family members or accepting them for who they are. It starts with Mabel and Bertie and a wicked stepfather and deception. These two sisters never return to each other and their separate generations all struggle in the family unit . It’s quite a sad novel and tries to tell us to be honest with each other and listen to each other. ( )

Loosely tied together.. Had so much potential... Too many sister character stories for one novel-she couldn't weave it to connect them appropriately- wouldn't recommend. ( )

This novel about sisters starts in Juniper, Kentucky in the 1920's with Mable and Bertie. Through a series of miscommunications, bad luck and stubbornness the sisters separate. The reader hopes for the sisters to reunite throughout the story. The novel follows the lives of the sisters through several generations and the lives that the sisters live are very radically different from one another. It is not a hopeful story of sibling relationships. But is does show the toll that one wrong decision can take on a relationship. ( )

I liked the idea of this book much more than the execution. Following two sisters from adolescence through old age--this is the kind of family saga I usually like, and exactly what I was in the mood to read. But the jumping around among characters and time periods was disorienting, and in the second half of the book I kept losing track of exactly who Lynn and Grace and Rainey were. Adding to this confusion was the fact that none of the sections had distinctive voices; pick a random paragraph from any point in the book and you would be hard-pressed to say whose chapter it was.

The relationship between Rainey and Lynn and Carl was not handled well and I was never entirely sure what the author was trying to say about Carl.

The only character that really interested me was Mabel, and I was somewhat frustrated with her plot points -- neither her actions in the first chapter nor the way she became a mother made much sense to me. ( )