Customer Reviews

About My Sisters

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"About My Sisters" deserves my highest recommendation. It is well written, funny, insightful and truthful. Mostly, however, it is relatable. Anyone with sisters--make that siblings--will relate to the feelings expressed and the stories told by this gifted author. While her focus is on the relationship(s) between four sisters who have a fifteen-year age spread, it is also about their sole brother, their unique parents and the author's son. It reads a lot like a novel, but I found it so much more enjoyable knowing these are real characters existing in a loving and tight-knit family. I became so interested in them that half way through the book I contacted the author through her website and asked her to identify each character as pictured on book cover of the hardback edition.

The reason I was so interested in them? The author writes with deep respect and a fearless honesty. Every story--even those about arguments--is awash with love. Debra Ginsberg allows the reader into her family and makes it a comfortable place to be. What's truly interesting about that is I don't think I'd be comfortable actually sitting with them during one of their many raucous family gatherings . . . but being the fly on wall was a fun place for me.

I purchased this book because of having similar family dynamics. I, too, am one of four girls in a family with a lone brother--making us five with a ten year spread. Unlike the author, however, I'm not the eldest of the tribe and don't possess her wisdom and knowledge of every phase of the family's changing traits. (I'm number four; however, I'm about the same age as the author AND I have a sister named Debra.) By reading the description of this book I knew immediately it was for me. I wasn't disappointed in the least and read it very quickly. Now I want each of my sisters to read it. (I'd suggest my brother read it too if he enjoyed reading anything other than the sports pages of the daily newspaper). In fact, I can see giving it as a gift to several girlfriends who have sisters.

Bottom line: If you appreciate fine writing and good story telling, you'll love this book. Even if you don't have sisters.

Michele Cozzens, Author of A Line Between Friends and The Things I Wish I'd Said.

Debra Ginsberg, author of WAITING and RAISING BLAZE, successfully and marvelously conveys what it means to be a sister in her latest memoir, ABOUT MY SISTERS. The very title was appealing to me, as I am the youngest of five sisters. I thought I could relate. And I did. It caused me to step back and look at the relationship I have with my own sisters, and made me realize the importance of family and spending time with those you love. It is because of this that I couldn't put the book down.

Tracking the course of a year in the lives of her three sisters, who only live ten minutes apart, Ginsberg eloquently follows their relationships with each other, Ginsberg's son, parents and one brother. Through birthday parties, family gatherings, changes in careers and dilemmas with boyfriends and each other, Ginsberg brilliantly expresses the union they share as sisters and friends.

Being the oldest sister, Ginsberg begins by telling of her relationship with her younger sister, Maya, moving from country to country and state to state with their nomadic parents. Because of this, a bond was formed between them that is described by Ginsberg so well: "I never even put 'sister' before her name when I talk about her. She is the part of me who is Maya." She then discusses the birth of each sibling after and how the family dynamic adjusted as their birth order was changed. Each sister has a special role in the family and shares a unique bond with one another that is not like any other connection possible --- whether with a parent or friend.

Immediately pulling readers into the story, Ginsberg's memoir reads more like a novel. Her ability to bring you into her family, as if you are a silent viewer on the sidelines of her life, is exceptional. She shows that sisters can argue, disagree, have different personalities and not tell each other everything, but still have the comfort and assurance that they will always be there to support each other no matter what, because they are sisters.

As Ginsberg states, "Together we illuminate each other. When we reflect off each other, whatever light we possess individually is made that much brighter ... It is the brilliance and power of sisters."

--- Reviewed by Karen Campbell

I, for one, don't have a sister, but I couldn't stop turning the pages of this gorgeously written, poignant, funny, and thought-provoking book. Debra Ginsberg is a wonderful writer, as anyone who's read her previous books knows, and she's continued to hone her craft. Can't wait for her next book!

More than the story of one author and her sisters, this book is a wonderful illustration of how families continue to shape us long after the formative childhood years. Debra's close/distant/close relationships with each of her unique (unmarried)sisters and solitary brother as well as their relationships with each other make this memoir tick. Although her parents are seen through the lens of the author, they, too, are part of the Ginsberg family chemistry. Yet ultimately, it is the girls who glue it all together--their issues around food and men and bodies and babies will capture most readers and keep the pages turning.

Through intimate snapshots highlighting her relationships with her three sisters and one brother, Debra Ginsberg illuminates the wonderful ordinariness of being a sibling. Each of the multi-faceted roles she plays within her family reflects with an enduring light that makes one cherish her own sisterly role or wish that it was one she could play. Other than an occasional tangent where Ginsberg got off track, this book was a well-woven tale attesting to the true power of family.

"No one will ever love you like your family!" my mother would holler at me, when I was a little girl, and, secretly, I'd think, How ridiculous. Now, at 47, I know the truth of her words but would add, as a cautionary note, "...and no one will ever drive you as nuts as your family."

Ginsberg, then, takes on a big subject in About My Sisters: family relationships. Despite the title, she actually looks at the complex world of both her family of origin (the sisters of the title, a brother, a mom and dad) as well as her extended family (her son, along with various boyfriends and girlfriends of family members).

It's in the very ordinariness of the family that the book derives its strength; by the description of the family's day-to-day feuds and fusses, as well as the family's ongoing support and caring, Ginsberg reveals the power of the family in our lives. A reader of About My Sisters will nod as she reads, recognizing, in the pages, her own family chaos, her own family cohesion, whirling and spinning, expanding and contracting, like the universe, like life itself.

I read this entire memoir from cover to cover and, after reading it all, I came away with the feeling that there were many more family dramas that were left out - perhaps to spare feelings and to remain in good standing with the family. One can hardly blame Ginsberg for that, though. Unfortunately, it waters the book down. Had she been writing about another family, objectively, the author would've probably been much less forgiving - and therefore a more honest and intriguing portrayal would've emerged.