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Loading... The Story Sisters: A Novelby Alice Hoffman
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. 1  |   GerryD8784 | Oct 6, 2009 |  very disappointing after waiting expectantly for my favorite authors newest book. I just didn't enjoy the whole premise of the sisters and their special language and all the escapades they engaged in. (  ) hammockqueen | Sep 21, 2009 | The bond between Elv, Meg and Claire, the three Story sisters changes forever on the day Elv protects Claire from an abduction and they hide the incident from everyone. At first Elv survives by retreating into her invented land but she eventually succumbs to the pull of reckless and selfish behavior that ends up having a dramatic affect on her whole family. I found most of the characters to be annoying rather than sympathetic. Not my favorite Hoffman - much preferred The Third Angel for family sagas. (  ) stonelaura | Sep 13, 2009 | I thought I would really like this book, but after reading about 100 pages, I simply couldn't summon the interest to continue. I didn't like the characters, couldn't understand the weak oblivion of the mother, and was put off entirely by the "magical realism." I gave it 2 stars out of guilt for not finding out if it improved after the first 100 pages. ( ) pdebolt | Aug 25, 2009 | This book started out so promising, and I was utterly charmed by Hoffman's writing from the very first page. Sadly, this enchantment did not last very long. The main story revolves around the three Story sisters: Elv, Megan and Claire. Elv is the oldest, and the creator of a magical imaginary world that the three sisters share. Unfortunately, the magic doesn't last. None of the characters were very appealing. Annie, the mother, seemed weak, clueless, and helpless. Elv was simply unpleasant. And the middle sister Megan and youngest sister Claire weren't much better. With no one to sympathize with, that left the plot. After the promising start, it soon went down a road I wasn't happy with. The book took an unexpected turn and lost my interest. I kept trying to plow through, hoping the story would pick up again, but no such luck. Wondering why and how this book received so many glowing reviews, I continued reading long after I would normally stop. Finally reached page 152 and threw in the towel. With so many books on my TBR pile vying for my attention, why bother with a book I was struggling with? So Story Sisters, I bid you farewell. Can't say it nice meeting you, but at least I didn't have to pay for the pleasure. Back to the library you go! I gave this book 1 out of 5 stars, as I simply couldn't finish it. (  ) alexia561 | Jul 30, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0307393860, Hardcover)This luminous tale filled with honesty and love charts the lives of sisters who find their curse and their salvation on the street where they live. One fateful summer they create their own magical world to escape a tragic encounter that has forever changed their lives. The healing power of imagination and love, the interwoven worlds of fiction and fact, the difference between liars and truth tellers, are at the core of this dangerous fairy-tale world where one mistake can follow you forever. A charismatic man who cannot tell the truth, a neighbor who is not who he appears to be, a clumsy boy in Paris who falls in love and stays there, a detective who finds his heart's desire, a demon who will not let go, all live within the confines of the sisters' world. Elv, Claire, and Meg are the Story Sisters, and each has a fate she must meet alone. One on a country road, one in the streets of Paris, and one in the corridors of her own imagination. At once a coming-of-age tale, a family saga, and a love story of erotic longing, The Story Sisters sifts through the miraculous and the mundane as the girls become women and their choices haunt them, change them, and finally redeem them. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:04 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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*Starred Review* A writer as virtuosic as Hoffman doesn’t bestow the name Story on a family lightly. So, yes, this is a many-storied novel about storytellers, brimming with magic and despair, atonement and redemption. The Story sisters, Elv, Meg, and Claire, are dark-haired beauties clustered in the attic of their old Long Island house, while their lonely mother broods below. Their all-female household, a sly variation on Little Women, is under a grim fairy-tale spell, and not even sojourns with their fairy-godmother-like grandmother in Paris can protect them. As always in Hoffman’s glimmering universe, nature is an awesome presence reflected in the mercurial human heart, and consequently, the Story girls are preternaturally sensitive to storms, ghosts, and plant and animal spirits. Meg is practical, while Elv and Claire share a tragic secret, and Elv channels her anguish into elaborate, demon-haunted tales of an imaginary parallel world until she discovers more effective means of self-punishment. The always dazzling Hoffman has outdone herself in this bewitching weave of psychologically astute fantasy and shattering realism, encompassing rape, drug addiction, disease, and fatal accidents. Her alluring characters are soulful, their suffering mythic, and though the sorrows are many and the body count high, this is an entrancing and romantic drama shot through with radiant beauty and belief in human resilience and transformation. --Donna Seaman (