Another deep and engrossing read from A. Manette Ansay.What a real privilege to again read another excellent work by author A. Manette Ansay. I was first introduced to her writing with Vinegar Hill, whose extremely, vivid and realistic characters were so shocking and emotionally wounded one can not help but turn page after page hoping for healing or restitution of some kind. I knew having read that book that I would continue to seek out and read more of her work. Sister is an absolute page turner. I've been in a bit of a reading slump but this book knocked me right back on track. I hungry digested this book in a record two days. Or maybe technically one if I count the hours. When I say I couldn't put this down. I really mean it. Aside from food and sleep, this book was attached to my hands, eyes glued to pages, chest wide open heart hovering in the air. Like fellow author Jodi Picoult, A. Manette Ansay has this way of bringing the reader right inside the lives of her characters and making them so living and breathing that you find yourself so emotionally attached. One would be hard pressed to attempt to convince any of her readers that any of this is fictional. In these moments, locked hypnotically between the words of these pages this is real. Somewhere, in some place, at some time this did or is happening and the names are just changed to protect the innocent. That's ok, Ms. Ansay, your loyal readers won't tell a soul. We'll protect the innocent because that is exactly whom you are writing about. The brutality human. The raw human spirit. The injured and persevering. The wounded and walking. Your neighbors. My neighbors. The children on the milk cartons and Amber Alerts and the people who cry and hurt and held up by the ragged over polished wood of church pews begging God and blindly clutching faith for miracles. My tears wet the pages of one book. Now they have dampened the pages of another and with this I know that we are both real. Her for telling her stories and me..because for 228 pages I opened myself up to vulnerability that this type of story demands. I don't know how she does it but this is a book that will stay with me for some time.Faith and religious fervor. I like to believe that everyone should have some religious fundamental belief that grounds them. A belief in a higher power gives the world and order life an ultimate purpose. Faith is something to hold on to and gives us hope. The essence of a religious beliefs is positive but some get caught up in the doctrine or their own distorted interpretation of the faith and make a complete mess of a good thing. The Schillers are Catholic. They live on a large piece of land on the outskirts of a very Catholic small town in Wisconsin. You go to Mass. You revere the church. You get married. You don't get divorced. Wife quietly obey your husband as your master no matter what. Stay home take care of the home and the children. Husband you are obliged to provide for your family and besides that, act how ever the heck you want. Men are hard men. They do man things. Women are soft women. They do what men tell them and do women things. So says the Bible and the church, right? This is at least this town's interpretation. Gordon Schiller believes he is the ultimate father. The church supports him as husband and father that whatever he says and does must be for the best. But Gordon Schiller is a brute, a bully and a puffed up insecure fool. His wife makes excuses for him as she tries to be a good Catholic wife and mother to her children Abigail and Sam. Abigail and Sam are one year apart in age. When they are little they are inseparable as twins. As two siblings so close in age living on a country farm it was completely logical for them to play together as eachothers best mate. There were no other children their age living on the adjoining farms. But their father found a boy child and a girl child so attached to eachother unnatural. Gordon, the insecure bully felt it his duty to separate the men from the girls. He did everything he could. He was harsh, rough, bawdy and down right inappropriate to both of them. This story is about what happens when people take their own past experiences, misgivings, inadequacies, griefs, insecurities, fears and push them off onto their children and use adherence to religion as an excuse for it. This is also the sad story of children who want to be loved and accepted but how can a parent give this if they don't embrace this for themselves. There are the saved ones. There are the lost ones. So is life. Life itself is harsh, no one should have to be given these lessons at home. This is an emotionally involved story. I embraced the characters. I was so angry at some and felt so sorry and sad for others. And yes I did shed a few tears. I give this 5 stars. I recommend this to readers of this authors other books and those who are looking for something that will grab you and make you feel. Even after you close the last page, you'll still be recapping. Of course I will read other books by this author.
Read on the heels of several other depressing books, this was not particularly what I was interested in reading at the time, so it might deserve more than the 2.5 stars I wanted to give it. I found the writing a little too matter-of-fact about events without any sense that Abby was gaining any insight from her reflections. I felt that certainly as an adult I knew very little about her but did not particularly have a sense that I would like her or that she would be a good wife or mother. As a child I wavered between understanding her need to do what she could to escape and blaming her for abandoning her brother in the process. In the end, I found little that held me in this book and I felt disconnected from all the characters.
What do You think about Sister (1997)?
Ansay is one of my favorite authors so when I saw this title, I bought it. Yes, some would say the plots of her novels are depressing, but to me, they are simply real. She writes about real life written in spectacular prose. Is her writing style for everyone? Absolutely not. It's a brutally honest style that I personally can relate to.She's not an author that you can read back-to-back and expect to be in a jolly-good mood. You do have to take some time off in-between reads, but i am looking forward to reading more of her in the future.
—Lauren
