Customer Reviews

Love Will Tear Us Apart

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

 

 

Love Will Tear us Apart was recommended to me by a friend who received a review copy. It absolutely floored me. It starts out fun and very light (McCarthy's fine prose is what kept me reading at first - plus the 'where the hell is this going' aspect) but gradually it takes a turn towards the darkly comic and eventually tragic. The ending works like a strong kick in the gut.

I have to admit, I raised my eyebrows when I read the description of this book online. A humorous novel about Siamese twin pop stars (think Britney Spears, umm, twice) seemed to border on poor taste. But when I saw it on the display table at the bookstore, I started reading the first page and was intrigued enough to buy it, and I did enjoy it. There's definitely a good deal of black humor (Letterman's Top 10 Songs for Fauna to record on a solo album: "Everytime You Go Away (You Take A Piece Of Me With You)"), but the author has also created some intriguing characters here. Flora and Fauna have distinct, strong personalities and this is a fascinating look at their unique kind of sibling rivalry. Ed, their alcoholic father/agent, could have been portrayed as evilly domineering or a complete buffoon, but instead he is a human being who loves his daughters but has his flaws. And Sloan, the writer recruited to move in with the twins and write their biography, starts out annoyingly self centered, constantly whining about being single and losing the man she thought was the love of her life, but comes to love the girls (and maybe their father) and genuinely care about their well being. The four become, as Sloan herself says "a dysfunctional family".

I would have given it four stars if not for the disappointing ending. It just seemed tacked on as a way of avoiding tying up the many loose ends that were left dangling. Otherwise, a good light read, definitely the most original chick lit plot to come along in ages.

I really enjoyed this book, i picked it up on sale and thought that i would never actually read it (pop stars? blegh!). i ended up being floored by its complexity, and just by the thought of Siamese twin pop stars. i also liked how it was placed in real time, making references to jay Leno and Britney spears. and don't forget the website that was mentioned on the back of the book! if you go there they have downloads of three of the Sparks Sisters' songs (even though they aren't real, which makes me wonder where they came from and if the author isn't writer/songwriter/musician). I did feel that the ending was a bit rushed, and their suicide/accident wasn't thoroughly explained.

A journalist gets more than she expected when she meets pop music superstars Flora and Fauna Sparks - twins who are literally joined at the hip. When Sloane Madden is invited to write the biography of the Sparks Sisters, she accepts, in spite of the fact that she thinks little of the music they create. Sloane moves into The Joint - the house that the 17 year old Siamese twins share with their father - and discovers that many secrets lie in those four walls.

Though the book jacket summary may make this story sound like a comedy or a soap opera, rest assured that it is neither. The story evolves and deepens as it goes on, all leading up to an unforgettable ending.

Though Flora and Fauna have distinct personalities, they are never portrayed as Good Twin and Bad Twin. Each has her flaws; each has her secrets. Meanwhile, Sloan's inner monologues are both sincere and cynical. The remarks she makes (or keeps to herself) regarding growing up, hanging on, and letting go allow readers to really get into the mind of the narrator.

Author Tara McCarthy is unafraid to take risks with this story and its characters. Love Will Tear Us Apart is well worth the read. It is quite different from her other novel, The Pursuit of Happiness, but in a good way; both are well-written, and both are recommended.

Renowned singing siblings Flora and Fauna Sparks agree they need a biography written about their unique lives as Siamese teenage twins. They choose thirty something journalist Sloan Madden to tell their story. Sloan sees the assignment as a simple job that will boost her career; so she accepts and moves into the Joint, a Hollywood Hills mansion that the performers share with their dad Fred.

As Sloan begins to know her subjects, she finds the stage harmony is filled with riffs. Instead of loving sisters, the duo battles one another with one of the youngsters wanting to go solo and jealousy is the norm. Surrounded by alcohol and drug abuse, Sloan begins pondering her relationships with her boyfriend, her friendship only with the man she really loves, and even Fred.

The key to this insightful relationship drama is that the tale never loses its prime perspective of focusing on Sloan; this is remarkable because the fascination of the Siamese twins would have made it easier to concentrate on them. The key cast is fully developed especially Sloan, the twins, and their dad. The interrelationships between these four and somewhat between Sloan and her boy friend and her best friend provide readers with a deep character study that grips the audience from the moment Sloan enters the aptly named Joint.

Harriet Klausner

...and maybe worst novel of the year in any category. "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is about a pair of Siamese twins, named Flora and Fauna Sparks. They are a kind of cross between Britney Spears and the Olsen Twins...but cojoined (which by the way, is the CORRECT term for this kind of twinning). In other words, they are pop princesses but not really very talented. A great deal of their fame seems to be from their alcoholic dad exploiting their physical deformity.

There is a long-winded explanation of why the twins were never seperated, although surgery to do this is well-advanced and has been done for decades. Some cojoined twins can't be seperated, because they share essential organs or are joined in a difficult way (at the head, for example). But Flora and Fauna are only joined at the hip -- the explanation that they "might end up paralyzed" is not very credible. You can have a hip entirely replaced -- why would that paralyze someone? The side of your hip is fairly far from your spine and if cojoined closer to the back, Flora and Fauna would not be doing activities in the book like playing tennis or even walking, let alone DANCING.

The novel is entirely constructed out of extreme improbabilities like this, on top of very sloppy and sketchy research about cojoined twins. Any information that WOULD actually be fascinating to learn -- how do they dress? go to the bathroom? -- quickly skipped over, because clearly Ms. McCarthy has no idea. She describes the twins as wearing all kinds of high-fashion clothing, and never bothers to tell us how such clothing is adapted for cojoined twins who are joined at the HIP -- this would require that every single thing they wear on the bottom half of their bodies to be custom made to accomodate their bodies.

The novel is knee-deep in the kind of situations and language that will be painfully outdated in a few years ("I IM'ed him...then listened to my iPod") and constant annoying references to current celebrities (Bono appears a few times) and popular music that the protagonist (journalist Sloan Madden) enjoys listening to (and which is entirely irrelevant to the plot).

I have read articles debating whether chick-lit is actually the modern day equivalent of Jane Austen, talking about the concerns of women (marriage, romance, etc.) and therefore being dismissed by serious critics. I am all for women's novels and romance being taken seriously, and I don't dismiss the entire category of chick-lit out of hand. A book is either good or it is bad. The judgement is about the QUALITY of the writing, not the genre or subject matter. An excellent book can be written about ANYTHING.

A bad book is one that has lame, corny writing, trite phrases, relies on stock characters and situations, using exploitation (Siamese twins having sex!) in order to get published or sell copies. Tara McCarthy has nothing whatsoever to say about the lives of cojoined twins, or celebrity worship in our culture, or the tribulations of single working women who just "can't find a man". This is one of those books -- it is not a quality work judged in any category. In ten years, it's self-congratulatory name dropping and trend spotting will sound about as relevant as a dodo bird.

In conclusion: this is not worth the couple hours it will take to read. It is especially unsuitable for teenagers, although not extremely graphic, because of the sordid attitude towards it's subject.