Customer Reviews

The House of the Seven Sisters: A Novel of Food and Family

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The tradicional recipe goes: Ingredients- eccentric people, a small lost town, either repressed or lost love (or both) and tasteful food. How to prepare: mix all the ingredients there is no way of failing. In case of doubt consult an expert, my suggestions are Joanne Harris's Chocolat; Isak Dinesen's Babette's Party; and Laura Esquivel's Like What For Chocolat.

Elle Eggels seems to have follow that old recipe, and this is exactly the taste we have when reading her novel. You've read it before, and you're read a better story, because it was fresh. `Seven Sisters' is not a bad book, it is just not very good, that's the point. From the begining you can figure out where it will lead you. And the novel is missing in passion. I didn't care too much about the characters. Maybe there were too many people and it always made confusing which sister is who. Eggels has talent, and she should use it better. Her novel reads like a nice pie you're eaten before many times, you may enjoy while eating, but tomorrow you won't remember how it tastes.

In The House of the Seven Sisters, Elle Eggels explores the hopes and desires (expressed and suppressed) of seven sisters, as seen through the eyes of Emma, the product of the oldest daughter's short-lived first marriage.

While I had some problems with the book, I thought that the characters were well- developed and sympathetic. I was interested in the women and in the subtle complexities of their relationships. Having been raised in family of eight, I felt that the large-family dynamics in this novel rang true. I had no trouble keeping the sisters straight as I read, and I finished this book in one day.

One problem I had with this novel, however, was the uneven writing. There were chapters that flowed, and then there were sections that most certainly could have used a little rewrite. In chapter 20, for example, the narrator states: "The dishes she had learned to prepare filled us with astonishment as they wandered over our tongues."

I wondered how that line had made it by the editors. Here, as in several places, the author tells us what to think as opposed to leading us where she wants us to go through the richness of detail.

I also had trouble with what appears to be an anti-Catholic slant. The clergy are blamed for causing women to die in childbirth, nuns are presented as heartless and cruel (in the school scenes and in the hospital scenes.) And there is a bizarre and improbable injury caused by a crucifix.

Although the novel ends on a hopeful note, I felt that the closing was rushed, as if the author had hit the page quota and wanted to wrap it all up.

I might recommend it simply on the strength of the charcter development and the detailed exploration of the relationships within a large family. This novel is a little like a made-for-TV movie ~ 'good enough' but not exceptional.