The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson is part of the SheReads Summer book selections. SheReads is a community of bloggers that as a group help promote specific books. We share reviews, thoughts, and our feelings after reading books suggested to us by the wonderful people who run the SheReadsOrganization.
Hardcover, 352 pages
Expected
publication: July 11th 2017 by William Morrow
With empathy, grace, humor, and piercing insight, the
author of gods in Alabama pens a powerful, emotionally
resonant novel of the South that confronts the truth about privilege, family,
and the distinctions between perception and reality---the stories we tell
ourselves about our origins and who we really are.
Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs' weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comics convention, the usually level-headed graphic novelist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman.
It turns out the caped crusader has left her with more than just a nice, fuzzy memory. She's having a baby boy--an unexpected but not unhappy development in the thirty-eight year-old's life. But before Leia can break the news of her impending single-motherhood (including the fact that her baby is biracial) to her conventional, Southern family, her step-sister Rachel's marriage implodes. Worse, she learns her beloved ninety-year-old grandmother, Birchie, is losing her mind, and she's been hiding her dementia with the help of Wattie, her best friend since girlhood.
Leia returns to Alabama to put her grandmother's affairs in order, clean out the big Victorian that has been in the Birch family for generations, and tell her family that she's pregnant. Yet just when Leia thinks she's got it all under control, she learns that illness is not the only thing Birchie's been hiding. Tucked in the attic is a dangerous secret with roots that reach all the way back to the Civil War. Its exposure threatens the family's freedom and future, and it will change everything about how Leia sees herself and her sister, her son and his missing father, and the world she thinks she knows.
Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs' weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comics convention, the usually level-headed graphic novelist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman.
It turns out the caped crusader has left her with more than just a nice, fuzzy memory. She's having a baby boy--an unexpected but not unhappy development in the thirty-eight year-old's life. But before Leia can break the news of her impending single-motherhood (including the fact that her baby is biracial) to her conventional, Southern family, her step-sister Rachel's marriage implodes. Worse, she learns her beloved ninety-year-old grandmother, Birchie, is losing her mind, and she's been hiding her dementia with the help of Wattie, her best friend since girlhood.
Leia returns to Alabama to put her grandmother's affairs in order, clean out the big Victorian that has been in the Birch family for generations, and tell her family that she's pregnant. Yet just when Leia thinks she's got it all under control, she learns that illness is not the only thing Birchie's been hiding. Tucked in the attic is a dangerous secret with roots that reach all the way back to the Civil War. Its exposure threatens the family's freedom and future, and it will change everything about how Leia sees herself and her sister, her son and his missing father, and the world she thinks she knows.
My Thoughts…
WOW! We start with Leia finding out she got
pregnant after one night with Batman.
Yeah, Batman. That is just the
first part of The Almost Sisters.
There are a few different storylines intertwined, yet it all comes
together perfectly.
Leia returns to
Alabama to help her Grandmother, who has been hiding her Alzheimer’s, get her
life in order and be sure she is safe.
When she arrives at her Grandmother’s house she finds more than what she
expected. She finds her grandmother
and her best friend have been keeping secrets for years from her. Add to this that her step-sister, Rachel,
is having problems with her husband.
Oh, and don’t forget she is still pregnant by Batman.
I should
mention that Batman is black and Leia is white. One of Leia’s fears is raising a mixed
race baby in the south. While in this
small town she sees how big the racial divide really is and it brings her fear
of raising her baby in the south.
Joshilyn
Jackson is a go-to author for me. With
The Almost Sisters I was not disappointed.
I cannot wait for more from her.
Book Links
New York Times Bestselling novelist Joshilyn Jackson is the author of seven novels and a novella: The Opposite of Everyone, Someone Else’s Love Story, gods in Alabama, Between, Georgia, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, Backseat Saints, A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty, and the novella My Own Miraculous. Her books have been translated into a dozen languages, won SIBA’s novel of the year, three times been a #1 Book Sense Pick, twice won Georgia Author of the Year, and three times been shortlisted for the Townsend prize.
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