Customer Reviews

Such Devoted Sisters (Signet)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In the begining of this story Annie knocks her stepfather unconscious after he tries to rape her. Annie takes her half sister Laurel and leaves their home forever. Laurel and Annie's mother is dead. The two of them stay with a Jewish family in New York. This is where Laurel spends the rest of her teenage life. Annie is a chocalte maker and Laurel is an aspiring. The sisters love each other but a huge hurdle is in their way. They find themselves both infatuated with the same man, Joe. Who will Joe choose? The book concentrates mainly on the struggle of the two sisters in their quest for the same man. Through most of this book Laurel is selfish and Joe is hot-tempered and a bit of an idiot. You will probably find yourself rooting for Annie. At the end of the story I questioned the true beleviability of it. I wasn't convinced that the woman that triumphed was the woman that Joe ultimately wanted or if he just wanted a bedmate. This book was somewhat slow in pacing. I think Trail of Secrets, by Eileen Goudge is a much better book.

The first sisters are Eve and Dolly, both Hollywood actresses, both pretty but with Eve having the determination to be the best, which gets her to the top while Dolly settles for parts in B grade movies. A crooked agent plays on Dolly's jealousy of her sister to falsely accuse her of communist sympathies, bringing her career to an end. Eve's subsequent suicide preys on Dolly's conscience,causing her to devote much of her life to the care of Eve's two daughters, Annie and Laurel. The major part of the book belongs to the lives and careers of the two girls, with Annie intent on becoming one of the great chocolatiers of the time and Laurel pursuing a career in art. It's an involved story with some pretty steamy love scenes and characters falling in and out of love. It actually would make a great soapie with villains and heroes, breaking hearts and heroines and the most mouth watering descriptions of fine chocolate making that can be imagined. It also DID tend to go on a bit but it was another cosy read.

I have to compliment the chocolate descriptions. They are so real you'll want to buy chocolates. But the book was too long and had too much descriptive detail. Half as much descriptive detail and half as many pages would have been fine.

You might as well buy a box of truffles before you start reading this book. There are many pages describing the making of chocolate desserts and candies - especially truffles that by the middle of the book you have a huge craving.

The story line/plot in Such Devoted Sisters is good and well developed. The plot kept me reading the book. I especially wanted to see which sister Joe ends up with and why. Eileen Goudge is a good story teller and I enjoyed her exploration of family members relationships (esp. sisters) through good times and bad.

This book, however, reminded me of Danielle Steel's books because Eileen Goudge tends to be verbose and repetitious. I found myself skipping passages due to the redundancy of the characters thoughts.

Overall, the plot was good, though the book was too long and overly descriptive.

The premise or this story was great....two sisters falling for one man. But this was the most boring and dramatic book I've ever read. I thought this would be a good-read because I read "Garden of Lies" which was great. I don't think this book needed to be more than 300pgs, but considering all the descriptions of the boring characters, that took up the other 300pgs. I am an avid reader, and this book was not worth it. It took me almost two months to complete because I couldn't stand it!

This was one of my favorite books of all time, don't understand the poor reviews!!!!! Don't let them sway you away from this book!!!!!

This was the longest-winded, boring book I've ever read. Over 600 pages of pure bore. The plot (if there actually was one) was shallow. Nothing good happened. I think, the only reason the book was so successful, was because "Garden of Lies" was so good, and so people naturally thought that this one would be good, too. So Goudge thought of a good story plot for "Garden of Lies". But she hadn't thought of another good one yet, but she wrote another novel anyway. Should her wealth be at our expense? If you haven't thought of a good story line, don't write a book yet.