Thursday, July 25, 2019

The Sister by Poppy Adams


Do you enjoy reading novels with unreliable narrators?? Then I have a novel for you! I recently finished listening to the unabridged audio version of The Sister by Poppy Adams and narrated by Juliet Mills.

Listening time for The Sister by Poppy Adams is 10 hours, 48 minutes.

The Sister by Poppy Adams had been in my 'to be read' pile for over 5 years and I am glad I finally listened to it! It hooks you in from the start all the way through to the end. Juliet Mills is a fabulous narrator and sounds a bit like actress, Judi Dench!

The Sisters is told through the view point of Ginny Stone. The story opens with Ginny waiting for her younger sister, Vivi, to return home after an absence of almost 50 years. As the listener, you feel a sense of excitement, tension/nervousness, and curiosity build while Ginny is waiting for Vivi to arrive home... Vivi is late which only adds to the suspense. All the while we're left wondering why Vivi has been away so long.

As the story unfolds, we learn about the entire Stone family and their deep dark family secrets, Ginny's specific quirks and unusual habits, and of course, and meet Vivi early on in the novel as well. 

Ginny is a little off/unstable and this becomes apparent early on in The Sister. As the storyline progresses, life seems to unravel fairly quickly for Ginny after Vivi's return home. They each have a differing opinion about things that occurred within the family, which lends to the unreliable narrator theme I mentioned earlier. 

I do mot want to give away much more of the plot details, but the end of the novel has a dramatic conclusion.

All I can add is that, I enjoyed The Sister quite a bit. It has a steady, but leisure pace to it.

The following is a plot summary for The Sister by Poppy Adams from Audible:
From her lookout in the crumbling mansion that was her childhood home, Ginny watches and waits for her younger sister to arrive. Vivien has not set foot in the house since she left nearly 50 years ago; the reclusive Ginny has rarely ventured out, retreating into the precise routines that define her days, carrying on her father's solitary work studying moths. 
As the sisters revisit their shared past, they realize that their recollections differ in essential and unsettling ways. Before long, the deeply buried resentments that have shaped both their lives rise to the surface, and Vivien's presence threatens to disrupt Ginny's carefully ordered world.
Told in Ginny's unforgettable voice, this subtle and chilling debut novel tells an extraordinary story of how families are capable of undoing themselves - especially in the name of love.
I am giving The Sister by Poppy Adams a rating of 3 stars out of 5 stars.

Until my next post, happy reading!!

2 comments:

  1. I love unreliable narrators and the fun of figuring out what is really going on while they narrate.

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    1. Yes, trying to figure out what is really going on is definitely appealing when you have an unreliable narrator.

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