The Prettier Sister [Paperback]

Francine Kaplan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 29, 2006

Reggie and Barbara are sisters who ride the sibling see-saw between Chicago and Palm Beach trying to balance their lives surrounded by a family that turns out to be only as good as its secrets. While three-year-old Reggie is propelled to Hollywood for a screen test, by an ambitious mother who envisions her as a star, eleven-year-old Barbara is left with a walk-on part. Told with humor, and pathos, filled with revealing sexual intricacy, their love is threatened. Siblinghood is examined through a keen and memorable lens.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Francine Kaplan's stories and essays have been printed in more than 25 literary magazines and newspapers. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, has written and created a powerpoint presentation on Women in Art and has led writing workshops in Chicago and Palm Springs. A skilled welder in her previous life, she was offered a job on the Alaskan Pipeline and settled for introducing welded sculptured jewelry to the Chicago area featured in major stores and boutiques nationwide.

Product Details

• Paperback: 275 pages
• Publisher: Infinity Publishing (September 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0741435063
• ISBN-13: 978-0741435064
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,157,614 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars It's the real thing., January 5, 2010

By 

Fritzie B. Von Jessen (California, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Prettier Sister (Paperback)

THE PRETTIER SISTER is a book that unlocks the truth of every woman's life. Frnacine Kaplan's wonderful prose captures the imagination and makes every page come to life. It is fiction that reads like a personal story. Did this really happen? I can relate to this. Those are the questions that keeps popping up in the reader's mind. What's next? It's a book that's impossible to put down until reaching the last page--with a deep sigh, wanting more.

Fritzie von Jessen, author
I Killed a Penguin: An Ecological MemoirTough Plants in a Fragile Land: Saving Our Planet, One Garden

5.0 out of 5 stars Reads Like Fiction; Feels Like Memoir, November 10, 2009

By 

Jim Duggins, Ph.D. "Author, The Power and Sla... (Rancho Mirage, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Prettier Sister (Paperback)

In "The Prettier Sister," Francine Kaplan has created a spell-binding yarn of Americana at its most intense. In the beginning, protagonist Barbara is ignored while her younger sister, Regina, is being pushed by their mother to become a Hollywood star and model. You'll laugh, you'll cry, sometimes you'll hate and sometimes love the family depicted in this story, warts and all. Protagonist Barbara and her lovely sister Reggie begin with traditional sibling rivaly slathered with alternating layers of love and hate. Wonderfully well written -- author Kaplan brings a chuckle to many a sentence, a tear drop, and often a belly laugh in this marvelous novel where the thesis is the tragedy of being the overlooked child. Just a few of the hundreds of shining examples in this stellar prose are: "his hairpiece stuck on his head like it had blown in and landed there;" "he stood bowed like a wilted flower over suitcases and cartons;" and "collecting boy friends, like her stamp collection, looking for the special one to paste into her life and make her rich.

"The Prettier Sister" is not an easy book, its life-lessons are tough: child abuse, addiction, rape, bedwetting, paternal abuse, and unthinking cruelty. Many's the time you'll say, "I don't want to know about this stuff," but you'll read on just as surely as you can't help gawking at the remains of a roadside accident. While the plot is riveting, Kaplan's rich use of language never fails to enchant. Francine Kaplan also has a knack for quick, wise and often profound observations about people, about life, about herself, all of which make this complex plot more engaging and real.

The most difficult part of the story for this reviewer was Barbara's continuing push-pull relationship with her father who presses sexual inferences and touch upon her, causing her to fear moments of intimacy and to yearn for a loving relationship with him without sexual ovetones. Here, Francine Kaplan is especially artful in presenting this fathers sexual machinations directly, but sensitively.

Finally, what you'll love about "The Prettier Sister" is the glory of author Kaplan's sentence construction and creative phrases that call you back, cause you to stop and reflect on a single phrase, e.g., [from her mother] "Please make sure my casket is closed. How I look dead is my business."

"The Prettier Sister" is better than a good book, it's a great book, one you won't forget for a long, long time. It's one of those books you won't be able to resist telling your friends about.