Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enchanting. Superb., July 9, 2006
Like other readers, I, too, am having a hard time moving on from the novel.
Like Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" and Audrey Niffenegger's "The Time Traveler's Wife", Lansens' "The Girls" owes its initial fame to a jaw-dropping concept, namely, a first person(s) fictional account of conjoined twin girls. Unlike those books, there is a fundamental joy brought forth from the sadness of the imagined situation. The two points of view, told in distinctively different voices and with different type settings, dance and weave with each other. Lansens, who has written for films and has an earlier novel, has a rich imagination coupled with a distinctive use of dialogue. But it is her gift for metaphor, and her voice that speaks of writing that causes the book to sit and simmer in your brain, ruining your concentration for those that come afterword....as Rose, the larger twin, the writer:
"Words leak from my brain. Seep out my ear. Burble from my crooked mouth. Splash on my shirt. Trickle into my keyboard. Pool on my warped parquet floor. At least they're not gushing from my heart.....I catch the words as they fall. My hands smell. And the place is a wreck. From all the spilled words."
Magnificent. The best book of 2005. Buy it, luxuriate in it.
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54 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unforgettable, Heart-Wrenching, Inspiring, Awesome Story, July 5, 2006
I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, but was floored by the beautiful writing, the prosaic metaphors, the sheer beauty of the entire story. . . not something you'd expect in regard to a tale of conjoined twins, fiction or not. It truly touched my soul and made me look at life through different eyes. I can only count on one hand the books that have affected me like this one.
When I read the last few pages yesterday, I was weeping. I didn't want the book to end. It wasn't a sad ending, I just didn't want the story to EVER end. I don't like giving book reports, but suffice it to say that this book will move into your heart and soul after you read it and will never completely leave you. A magnificent book, pure and simple. It deserves 10 stars and a Pulitzer Prize.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A reminder of why I read fiction, April 5, 2006
I was lucky enough to get my hands on an early copy of this book. I opened it with no certainty that I planned on taking the time to read it. But the first sentences grabbed me, the early pages glided away, and by then, I was so entrenched in this world and entranced by the two main characters that there was no letting it go. This is a warm, open hearted gift of a novel. It demands to be read, and Lansens writes with such grace and clarity that it is easy to forget that this is fiction. I loved this novel, and I'm sure that I will return to it again.
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