Customer Reviews

You Were Always Mom's Favorite!: Sisters in Conversation Throughout Their Lives

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I enjoyed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation and know of Tannen's other books, so was interested to see that she has sliced her studies of conversation yet another way here -- along sisterly lines in You Were Always Mom's Favorite!

It's an interesting slice since, as Tannen writes, "A sister is like yourself in a different movie, a movie that stars you in a different life." She posits that these lives revolve around a subset of sibling rivalry where sisters connect and compete in attempts to align themselves for parental love. She supports that not through strictly scientific data but rather social anecdotes -- examples pulled from literature, pop culture, and her own interviews. It's notable that I've recently read two other books that incorporate "everyman" quotes; they were clumsy in insertion and vacuous in content and frankly spoiled the works. But here, Tannen knows expertly when to summarize someone's comments, and when instead to roll seamlessly into a spot-on and memorable quote.

A couple quibbles. First, contrary to the subtitle, this book is not much about conversation. Rather, it's primarily about psychology and exploring the underlying family roles and dynamics that sometimes bubble up into verbal and nonverbal communications.

Second, Tannen leaves no stone unturned, no shade of gray unexamined. At one point, she refers to the 17 single-spaced pages of research notes she'd accumulated for one topic; I think she included every one of them in this book -- first via a complete, fully formed example, then appended with a summarizing paragraph. The wordiness and repetition grew tedious, and tolerable in doses of at most a chapter at a time. I actually think an audio version would be a better fit for Tannen's smooth, conversational (!) style, and would make any repetition feel reinforcing rather than frustrating.

My wife's relationships with her sisters drive me absolutely bonkers. One day/month/year they're best friends who do lots of things together, and the next second/minute/hour they're arch enemies who can't agree on anything. Deborah Tannen's book is an entertaining look at the dynamics of sister-sister conversations, and although it doesn't explain everything I'd like to know about why my wife and her two sisters act the way they do, it at least let me know that there are lots of other sisters out there who act just as bizarrely.

I recommend this for anyone who wants support in trying to negotiate this minefield.

I loved Tannen's book about mothers and daughters in conversation, so I had to read her latest, about sisters. If you have a sister or daughters I think you will find this book enjoyable and useful. It's interesting that sisters' conversational themes are so universal that Tannen can analyze them.

Most helpfully, Tannen addresses why sisters compete. She gives parents tips about how to minimize sisters' rivalry and adult sisters advice about how not to get riled up about old childhood baggage.

I am an avid reader,yet this book has engrossed me like no other. It has transported me back to my childhood, released memories long repressed, and given voice to fears of the future that have remained unspoken. Deborah Tannen becomes like a sister surrogate as she gently guides you through the labyrinth of layers that engulf the sister relationship within the family: the alignments that are forged with or against parents that make or break the sister bond, the importance of the birth order, the inevitable competition between sisters, such as "the pretty vs the smart one" and the pitfalls of each assigned role, and much, much more.. Ms Tannen's beautiful prose makes the reading of this well researched, relevant and highly therapeutic book a true pleasure. I have read all of her previous work, and this is her best publication so far. I could not stop reading it.

Having a sister almost twelve years older, who lives across the US from me, I looked forward to reading this book. Thought that I would also be able to put my wonderful friends and other special women, who are 'like sisters' to me, in that same role.
What I did glean from the book and appreciate is that there is no one like a biological or adoptive sister, someone who shares your past in some way, somehow always a connection to draw upon, no matter how close or not.
I also thought of my friends and other special women...who had sisters, not as many as I would have presumed.
As Deborah Tannen interviews one could relate here and there, yes, that was us. When Tannen speaks of communication and the ups and downs, pros and cons, validations and hurts etc., she makes no judgements but presents how one or the other might have been feeling at the time.
At the conclusion of the book, I believed I will now be a better sister, mother, mother in law, friend, sister in law, aunt etc. Since my sister and I no longer have our parents we have each other and our history.
This book does not attempt to solve relationship problems, it just presents different women along the course of their lives.
I will share this book with many.

I haven't peeked at what others have said about this book, but I think it's nearly impossible to review it without telling personal stories. I, for instance, am the youngest of four children, with my siblings 10, 12, and 14 years older than me. I grew up with a generation gap between my sisters and myself, and I'm closer in age to my oldest nephew than I am to his father. I found myself in plenty of awkward situations, particularly after all my siblings married (when I was 10); suddenly I was an Only Child.

All those family interrelationships made this book a particular standout among my Amazon Vine choices. Deborah Tannen is famous for exploring so many other relationships, especially regarding gender. Could she spread some enlightenment here, I wondered?

She could.

Tannen interviewed hundreds of women with sisters. And by telling stories, LOTS of stories, she identifies the ways in which our "sisterness" affects us, for good or for ill. Some of the conclusions start out seeming obvious, such as the Oldest Sister so often being called upon to protect and take care of the younger children... except Tannen follows the role into adulthood, and shares how that experience shaped both the oldest sister and the younger ones too. She highlights how the relationships between brothers is like AND unlike sisters' relationships; for instance, men are more likely to say that they and their brothers are "just like" each other, while women generally define themselves by their perceived differences ("I'm the smart one and she's the pretty one" or "I'm tall and she's short") -- and then she passes along stories from her interviews about how those perceptions create opportunities and traps. For example, one woman later regretted that she didn't go to medical school -- because it was her SISTER that was "the smart one" and she had no expectation that she could be good enough.

Tannen's writing is engaging, and I zoomed through the book in a few days' leisure reading. One light note is that she also includes references to sister relationships from literature, from The Taming of the Shrew to The Other Boleyn Girl. Several of those references are interesting enough that I'll soon be adding them to my own reading list.

I think I was expecting this to be some kind of "how to" (like "what younger sisters need to understand about their older sisters") but that isn't quite what You Were Always Mom's Favorite is about. Rather, it made me a lot more aware of the relationships my sisters each had with one another -- especially the ones of which I wasn't a part -- and with our parents. My sisters shared a room for several years (as the baby, I got my own room, and my brother was made Lord of the Finished Attic) but I have only a few memories of their competition for "whose side of the room this is" or the dreaded hand-me-down clothing or their shared doll collection or the (imagined, for me) clamoring for parental attention before I, the brat, turned up on the scene.

I very much enjoyed the book, but I can't quite tell you what appeals to me most about it. (I'm not used to that!) I don't want to say, "This is a great gift for any woman with a sister," because I'm not sure that it is. I think that if you and your sister love each other a lot, and are very close, you'll both enjoy reading it, because it's sure to start many fruitful conversations. If your relationship is less perfect... hmm, you should read the book yourself, rather than immediately gift it to her; I can imagine too many ways that a sister in a troublesome relationship might consider the book some kind of criticism, when all you meant was enlightenment.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it really wasn't this!

I have a sister with whom I love dearly and with whom I have had a share of conflict with. I bought this book as a way to understand sister dynamics and hopefully to find answers for healing and "bridging gaps" caused by the growing up years. This book offers none of this.

Quite simply speaking this is a book that offers different "looks" at sister dynamics. Alternately using stories of her own experience with stories from her research study, I was able to grasp overall concepts, but nothing really concrete and lasting.

"You Were Always Mom's Favorite" was a theme that resonated with me and is why I ordered this book, however instead of offering advice on how to restore a sister relationship, it simply skipped around showing many different examples of sister dynamics without any real advice.

I was definitely hoping for something less "sociological" and more "self improvement"...I guess it was my mistake not being familiar with this author.

At first I was wary of "You Were Always Mom's Favorite" because I expected it to focus on "normal" sister relationships and not difficult, complicated ones, such as that between my sister and me, who are anything BUT the "best friends" the very word "sisters" usually brings to mind. But I am familiar with and have great respect for Deborah Tannen's other works in the field of sociolinguistics, and decided to take a chance on this one. I am glad I did.

Tannen writes well, and holds one's interest from the first page. And from the first page, I saw observations and comments, the articulation of feelings with which I could immediately empathize, and realized that I was not alone in my complex, complicated feelings for this brilliant, beautiful, berserk, exasperating person who is too much like me at the same time she is not enough like me.

So now I understand her, and my relationship with her, a little better, and I feel a little less alone in that. It seems there is no typical sororal relationship, except that love-hate is the norm.

And so, as soon as I finish writing this, I'm going to phone my sister and suggest she read this book.

But I'll still never forgive her for what she did to that favorite doll of mine all those years ago...

I quite enjoyed reading this book, but I found it somewhat lacking compared to Deborah Tannen's previous books. It seemed to have less of a focus on conversation and words than her previous books, including her last book about mothers and daughters. Tannen seems to focus more on the roles of sisters- the oldest versus the youngest, in particular (since the middle sister will likely have elements of each, depending on with which sister she is interacting). As an older sister, I especially appreciated her extensive chapter and analysis of older sisters, and I found myself nodding in agreement a number of times. However, I really wish she had dedicated as much time to younger sisters. Tannen is the youngest of 3 sisters herself, and at times, I felt like the role of older sister was more interesting to her as she tried to make sense of her own family. I really would have loved more insight into the roles and reasoning behind younger sisters, as she relayed so many anecdotes that I could have told myself (bossy older sister, younger sister who "borrows"/takes the older sister's clothing/possessions, etc.), but I don't feel that I got a good handle on what makes younger sisters tick.

Another issue that I had with this book is that Tannen seems to rely very heavily on examples from fiction writing to illustrate her points. I am not sure if this is something that is standard practice in the linguistics field, but in a book for a lay audience, I felt that this took away from her arguments somewhat, and real examples would have been far more powerful than fictional ones. Also, if you have read Tannen's previous books, you will know not to expect any real advice for how to communicate better with your sister. If you are thinking about this book hoping it will help you navigate a testy relationship with a sister, or that it will give you guidance about how to create a stronger relationship, you need to look elsewhere. Tannen's books (at least her ones on family) merely serve to provide insight into what is going on, and any advice is thin on the ground. This is more of an analysis, not a self-help book.

That said, I did enjoy this book, if only because I felt that it reflected my experience as an older sister. I just wish it had been as helpful for the other roles in the family.

Deborah Tannen has produced a book that is ultimately a sociologically-based communication study. If it sounds bland, it can be. It can also be confusing as she shifts from personal stories of her own family, to personal stories of her students that turn into research papers, to clinically-based modalities of communication styles and outcomes. This book feels like a rough draft; a great concept and intriguing foundation has been laid, but the brick-and-mortar of the book is a little shaky. A healthy dose of editing and re-focusing could bring this book into its own. However, if one is willing to make the effort, valuable insights can be gained in sister speak. There aren't a lot of practical real-life approaches to sister dramas, though it's promised at the end chapter titled "Sisterness". What's missing is the excitement, angst and outrage hinted at in the title! A match needs a flame, and in my experience sisters are always ready to ignite into a sibling-rivalry induced rage.This book needs some of that spark.