Brother & Sister [Mass Market Paperback]

Joanna Trollope (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: McArthur & Company; First Thus edition (January 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1552785084
• ISBN-13: 978-1552785089
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,970,010 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joanna Trollope has been writing fiction for more than 30 years. Some of her best known works include The Rector's Wife (her first #1 bestseller), A Village Affair, Other People's Children, and Marrying the Mistress. She was awarded the OBE in the 1996 Queen's Birthday Honors List for services to literature. She lives in England.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The drama of identity, March 10, 2005

By 

Leslie Newman (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brother and Sister: A Novel (Trollope, Joanna) (Hardcover)

This was my first encounter with Joanna Trollope, and I was thoroughly engaged. There are no peripheral characters. Each person has a dramatic journey, captured by Trollpe economically in well chosen scenarios.

The structure was a clever one: Natalie and David, with different birth mothers are adopted into the same family, each now feels something is missing in their lives, and they are each closer to each other than they are to their partners. Jealousy and fear of loss entwine, leaving everyone unsettled.

The birth mothers' stories are poignant and compelling, as is the struggle and growth of Lynne, the adoptive mother. Natalie's partner and David's wife feel understandably left out of their search, but struggle with their own issues of identity, intimacy and control.

For me, this novel provides an argument for open adoption, at least giving the children a narrative of their own beginnings, and the birth parents some information about the progress of their children if they wish it, or at best a completely open situation where everyone stays, to some extent, a part of each other's lives. But then, that wouldn't make a very interesting novel.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Did Not Ring True to Me, September 4, 2004

By 

Carol C. Berk "miamitraveler" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brother and Sister: A Novel (Trollope, Joanna) (Hardcover)

I am an adoptee, and I have to say that I found this book far off the mark of my experience. Nothing rang true to me in this book except Cora's loss at the substitution of her baby for the real woman who was her daughter. I recently went through my own search and reunion with my birthmother and my mother, my husband and my son could not have been more supportive and interested in my journey. And they shared in it all the way. My new found siblings were also welcoming and loving at a very difficult time. My sister went through her own journey ten years ago and her experience also could not have been more different than the characters in this book. I found most of the characters and their angst totally unrealistic. The author obviously knows nothing of the real adoption, search and reunion experience except from reading about it from these pseudo-experts and their jargon about the "primal scream" of adoptees when they are ripped from their biological mothers at birth. Total bunk. If you are an adoptee don't read this book, and especially don't read it if you ever plan to search for your birth parents. For those who have never gone through the experience, read it, but with a suspension of disbelief, because it is far from the real experience.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good news: Trollope back at her best with pen in fine fettle, June 11, 2004

By 

KatPanama "katpanama" (Readerville) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brother and Sister: A Novel (Trollope, Joanna) (Hardcover)

Whew, what a relief that this is a good novel, the sort of quality experience I expect from Trollope since her last novel (Girl from the South) was inferior. This one, however, is mighty fine reading and particularly involving. Definitely THE story for those interested in adoption from whichever view you want (adoptee, adopter, married to, sibling with, etc.).

Wonderful book replete with the details, texture and ungovernable emotions of family life. Finest kind of reading. I have to say I learn from Trollope's novels and I mean that in a good way. When it comes to the family and our human hearts, Trollope has insights that entertain, sure, but which also are useful. Mind you, I hate that touch-feely stuff! but I love Trollope's novels.