The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

book cover from LibraryThing

I was ready for an adult book after so many YA titles and this one didn't disappoint me! I loved it!  yes - it's full of cliches and stereotypes - but I found that comforting and enjoyable!

The story follows three sisters all migrating back to their family home for different reasons - but there to help their mother as she faces breast cancer.  Well, they claim they are there for their mother.  But...

Rose (Rosalind) is the oldest and a math professor at a nearby college. She is the classic oldest - in charge of her own life and every other person around her.  She lives at home with mom and dad ( a professor of Shakespeare at another college) and picks up the slack as mom gets distracted and dad lives in the the literary world of his beloved Shakespeare.  She is engaged and her beau has taken a year visiting professorship in England.  Duties and responsibilities are keeping Rose grounded at home.

Then there is Bean (Bianca) who has fled home to the bright lights of New York, only to slink home broke and disgraced. Bean knows how to use her body to get what she wants - she is manipulative and selfish and focused.  She also is deeply in hate with herself and trapped in her destructive ways.

Lastly, there is the baby Cordy (Cordelia).  She has been on a several year tour of the US - following bands and homeless and living the life of the sixties hippies decades too late.  She is drawn home by an un-expected pregnancy.  And steps in not explaining or making excuses.

Mom and dad are slight characters - they are important to the story - but they aren't the story.

Rather it is the sisters and the way the move between what their stereotype says and way they want to be. This is a feel good family book - all works out the way it's supposed to... that was exactly the kind of story I was looking for!

I have two sisters and kept wondering if we fit in the same molds.
I don't think so... but I liked wondering.

Read it.