Before my review, I want to congratulate Rebecca Rasmussen on the release of The Bird Sisters!
I met Rebecca here on my blog, where she is a regular commenter. I got to know her on Twitter, where she is one of the nicest people in my Twitter feed. I admit I was a little nervous about reviewing her book– what if I didn’t like it? Luckily, that didn’t turn out to be an issue.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What a nice book!
By nice, I don’t mean that nothing unpleasant happens– that’s not true at all. There’s lots of very human bad behavior and a chunk of good, old-fashioned bad luck. But the way the characters deal with it, for better or worse, just made me relax and enjoy the book– with a tissue for the tears, a couple of times.
After all, there are two sisters that grow up loving each other very much, through all of their differences.
I loved seeing the sisters as teens and as elderly women, and guessing how they got from one life to the other. Although the main paths are pointed out over the course of the book, mysteries remain, as they should.
Twiss, the rebel tomboy, was the center of the action, and my favorite character, even if I identified more with the sweet and virtuous Milly, always trying to make everyone else happy.
It’s easy to see how Twiss would end up as one of the bird sisters, never quite fitting into the expected path of marriage and a family, but Milly? How does she end up as the other bird sister? How does Cousin Bett fit into the long term picture?
If Twiss is my favorite character, and Milly is the one I identify with, Bett is the most fascinating. She’s older than her cousins, and it’s unclear what kind of person she is, and why she acts the way she does. Oh, I had my suspicions all along…
The Bird Sisters is a book full of interesting characters, and I enjoyed getting to know them.
I recieved my copy of The Bird Sisters for review thanks to the author and the publisher.
