6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sister Mine--rollicking good fun and literature to boot!, July 16, 2007
I stumbled upon "Sister Mine" at my campus bookstore, and like another reviewer, the first sentence sucked me in. Before I knew it, I was back in my dorm room unable to stop turning the pages. Shae-Lynne's gripping narrative provided a welcome respite from my Chaucer reading and the research paper I should have been writing.
This novel contains so much--pathos, laugh-out-loud humor, well-drawn compelling characters. My Chaucer professor has remarked that the difference between literature and popular fiction is that literature has cracks in it that are open for the reader to interpret. "Sister Mine" qualifies as literature according to his definition. For example, I have spent some time pondering what took place in the conversation between Clay and Shannon at the end of the book. Clay tells his mother "I realize after talking to Aunt Shannon that there are things about you I don't understand completely...." I have tried to tease out just what Shannon told him. How much of her and Shae-Lynne's childhood did she disclose? Did she confide her suspicions about Clay's own birth? But this ambiguous line, so open to interpretation, is only one of the many gems within Sister Mine.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A tough-talking, hard-as-nails chick with a killer wardrobe, a keen sense of justice,a tendency to pick a fight, May 29, 2007
Shae-Lynn Penrose is a lot of things. She's a single mom, a retired cop and the only taxi driver in the small town of Jolly Mount, Pennsylvania. She's also a tough-talking, hard-as-nails chick with a killer wardrobe, a keen sense of justice, a tendency to pick a fight and a backstory a mile long.
Part of that long and sometimes painful history is Shae-Lynn's little sister, Shannon, who disappeared without a trace from their small coal mining town many years before. Shae-Lynn has always suspected that their father, a bitterly unhappy coal miner with a recreational habit of beating up his little girls, finally let his abuse go too far and killed Shannon. That theory has to be revised, though, when long-lost Shannon shows up on Shae-Lynn's doorstep --- nine months pregnant, with no boyfriend or husband in sight.
Shannon isn't entirely alone, though; in her wake comes a rich Connecticut housewife, a suave New York lawyer and a Russian mobster --- all looking for Shannon. What has Shannon been up to? What does she want --- or need --- from Shae-Lynn? Does her arrival mean more trouble for Shae-Lynn? Or will it finally force her to confront some other demons in her past?
Although the candy-colored cover art and pun-filled title, sharp-tongued protagonist and mystery plot might make you think that SISTER MINE is aimed at, say, fans of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, Tawni O'Dell's novel is far more sophisticated than it appears at first glance. Sure, there are plenty of funny situations --- O'Dell has a knack for writing fast-paced, vivid action scenes and other dramatic or comic interactions --- but Shae-Lynn's observations lend insight, and even wisdom, to the book's portrayals of place and of its many finely-drawn secondary characters.
Foremost among these are the "Jolly Mount Five," a group of five miners who survived a highly-publicized mine explosion several years earlier. These men (and their wives and friends), deeply scarred emotionally and physically, help form a deeper, richer and sadder portrait of the way of life in a coal mining town. They have dealt with the trauma, the fleeting fame and the too-small monetary rewards in various ways, from starting (and mismanaging) a "celebrity restaurant" to drinking away the memory of an amputated limb. Shae-Lynn's taxi-driving job --- not to mention her burgeoning relationship with one of the men --- enables her to reflect on how these five men (now considering suing the mine for damages) represent the town --- and the industry --- in general.
Like her character, Tawni O'Dell left Pennsylvania for a while, only to return to the land of her youth. Her affection for, and at times outrage on behalf of, the landscape and people of this overlooked, underappreciated region shines through everything she writes. Her debut novel, BACK ROADS, was an Oprah's Book Club pick. With its exploration of family, self and place, SISTER MINE deserves much the same audience.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best book I've read in months...or more, November 25, 2007
Okay, I admit it. I'm getting lazy. Authors have to work harder and harder every year to get me to get past page five. *Sister Mine* had me from the first sentence with a gripping voice and before the first buzz could wear off I was in the thrall of a intelligent yet tilt-a-whirl story with edgy, funny characters. For the first time in a long time I was walking around with a hardcover novel tucked under my arm, as attached as a yuppie to her bluetooth.
It's plot, character and voice that keep me (and,if I may presume, most readers) engaged, but the real test comes two weeks later when (if) those characters, etc. are still with me. Shae-Lynn Penrose, her sad, dysfunctional family of origin, and the son she somehow launched as a success are not only still hangin' in the backroads of my mind, I'd love to know what they'll be up to next. What keeps them around, though, is the too-often neglected element of any good novel: the setting. Enough with the hip New York scene already. (Just kidding -- I love New York.) Shae-Lynn and her friends are rooted to their eyebrows in the coal-rich soil of Pennsylvania, and it's O'Dell's portrayal -- new to these urban eyes -- of a coal-mining town that rounds out the novel and makes it more than a rattling good yarn, but a piece of American life.
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