kristinafh's Full Review: Megan Crane - Names My Sisters Call Me
Summertime is always about the chick lit for me and based upon previous buzz about this author (Megan Crane), I decided to pick up her April 2008 work of fiction entitled, Names My Sisters Call Me.
Celloist Courtney Cassel is the happiest woman alive - her long-time boyfriend, Lucas, has just proposed. Her older sister Norah (the perfectionist, the one who believes that dating/marriage/childbearing happens on a particular schedule) is 'content' for her and immediately launches into the logistics of wedding planning. Her mother is thrilled and wants to plan an engagement party. While Courtney feels rushed by the process (hello - she just got engaged three seconds before she walked into family dinner), she announces that she's not getting married without her other sister Raine involved.
Talk about silencing the room.
No one has seen Raine (the prodigal middle daughter) for six years - since she ruined Norah's wedding reception with her drunken antics. To make matters worse, Raine disappeared with her best friend (Matt), who just happened to be dating Courtney at the time, that exact night. They ran off to California. Why? Because they could.
In all that time neither Raine or Matt had reached out to Courtney. It's been six years, isn't it time to call a family truce and bring everyone back together for this happy occasion?
And that's what Courtney attempts to do. The book is about her re-examining the choices she has made since the death of her father (in childhood) and how each sister's relationship with her has affected where she sits in her life today. Has she made the right choices? Should she be marrying Lucas?
I guess you'll have to read the book to find out!
For me, I found the book not only easy to read (it flowed well) but it also touched upon issues that I have often kicked around in my own mind.
Usually, I don't like it when authors make the main characters so one-dimensional. Norah - with that always proverbial stick up her backside - and Raine - the artsy hippy free love chick were very much kept in one-dimensional land. But you know what? It was best that the two other sisters in the story were kept in this box. Otherwise, I could have seen the story stray from its main purpose - Courtney's journey to a state of self-actualization.
What I think that Megan Crane does best is the dialog that occurs between the characters. For example, the banter between Courtney and her fiance Lucas was classic, smart, and witty. In truth, it reminded me of how my husband and I talk to each other and I don't think I've ever seen it in written chick-lit form before.
At just over 300 pages, Names My Sisters Call Me, will never be labeled as a great work of fiction. But if it's a chick-lit book that you need to lose yourself in, this is a fantastic one to check out from the library.
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