About the author: Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of over 25 books for adults, teens (including The Twin’s Daughter and Little Women and Me), and children (The Sisters 8, a nine-book series she created with her husband and daughter). Before becoming an author, Lauren was an independent bookseller, freelance editor, Publishers Weekly reviewer, sort-of librarian, and window washer. She lives with her family in Danbury, CT. Visit her at www.laurenbaratzlogsted.com or follow her @LaurenBaratzL on Twitter.
About the book: Some families you are born into. Some you choose. And some choose you. Four women have little in common other than where they live and the joyous complications of having sisters. Cindy waits for her own life to begin as she sees her sister going in and out of hospitals. Lise has made the boldest move of her life, even as her sister spends every day putting herself at risk to improve the lives of others. Diana is an ocean apart from her sister, but worries that her marriage is the relationship separated by the most distance. Sylvia has lost her twin sister to breast cancer, a disease that runs in the family, and fears that she will die without having ever really lived. When Diana places an ad in the local newsletter, Cindy, Lise, and Sylvia show up thinking they are joining a book club, but what they discover is something far deeper and more profound than any of them ever imagined. With wit, charm, and pathos, this mesmerizing tale of sisters, both born and built, enthralls on every page.
Review: A sweet story about four very different women coming together and becoming the best of friends despite some rough situation, Lauren Baratz-Logsted’s The Sisters Club is a relaxing, engrossing, and thought-provoking read. While there is some profanity and sexual content which I never like, it was rather easy to avoid.
It seems at times that there is an epidemic of loneliness going around; the way the protagonists in this book went around to “cure” themselves of this “disease” is inspiring and empowering; yes, it can be as easy as placing an ad in the paper. But it is also realistic in that any group of four women with baggage who have just met will inevitably go through some sort of challenge, if not more—which is exactly what happens to the four women at the centre of this story.
The story is effortlessly touching and insightful without being patronizing. One of the elements I most appreciated is the timeline of the story. The book is divided into sections that begin with a “group” chapter in which a third person POV is adopted. The come four chapters, one in each character’s POV. We get to take a step back to see the entire group, then see the world and the three other characters through the eyes of one of the women. In between sections can have gone by long sections of time, up to a couple of months for some, and yet we are easily caught up on what has happened in the interim within the first couple of lines of the next section. This format is really well done and well executed by Baratz-Logsted.
A must-read for all women yearning to have or wanting to nurture sister-like relationships.