A Tale of Two Sisters (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "When my sister left her jungle villa after two weeks at the Datai, on the tropical island of Langkawi, she wrote a little note for..." (more)
Key Phrases: sex columnist, bedside drawer, Sarah Paula, Ladz Mag, Friday Night (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lizbet and Cassie Montgomery, Jewish sisters in London, seem to like their lives: Lizbet, cute but schlumpy, has a mid-level job at Ladz Mag and a smart, sweet long-term, live-in boyfriend in product designer Tim; barrister Cassie, glossy, smart and hot, is married to fastidious BBC production assistant George Hershlag, which suits her fine. The two sisters have a close if constrained relationship, but when Lizbet announces she's pregnant, Cassie turns cold, even as their parents ("Vivica and Dad") are immediately thrilled. When, 30 or so pages later, Lizbet miscarries the baby in the second trimester, she plunges into despair. Cassie comes to her aid, but it may be too little, too late. Maxted (Behaving Like Adults, etc.) alternates smoothly between Lizbet's and Cassie's perspectives, giving each a distinctive voice and nailing lapsed London Jewry amusingly. When she shifts to Cassie, she handles a series of major revelations with the same emotional acuity that she gives Lizbet's devastation at the loss of her baby. As Lizbet discovers her fabulous side (but perhaps not for the better), what looks from the outside like Cassie's comeuppance is full of crushing sadness. Maxted has to do a lot of wrangling to manage the happy ending, but it offsets this chick lit novel's surprisingly harrowing center. (Aug.)
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From The Washington Post

The British writer Anna Maxted has published five books in roughly six years, with three of them -- Getting Over It, Running in Heels and Behaving Like Adults -- landing on international bestseller lists. Her latest novel, A Tale of Two Sisters, seems likely to advance her success, as well as her franchise. Maxted's protagonists tend to be familiar chick-lit types -- hapless, harried career gals who hold down madcap jobs and wrestle with relationships, and now procreation, amid a surfeit of exclamation points. Her narratives are wrapped around topical themes, resulting in novels that read like some hybrid of "Sex and the City" and an hour with Dr. Phil.

Maxted has previously tackled such subjects as rape, intimacy and eating disorders; her new novel relates, in alternating first-person voices, the saga of two sisters and the painful matters of miscarriage and adoption. Lizbet, the first to become pregnant, is the more earthy of the pair, with a chaotic but lively household and a seemingly stable relationship. The posh and fastidious Cassie is a successful and ruthless divorce lawyer who drives a Mercedes and requires passengers to remove their shoes before climbing in. The announcement of Lizbet's pregnancy coincides with Cassie's decision to confront the unresolved issues of her own adoption, and therein lies the plot, such as it is.

Maxted is a terrific writer with a droll comedic voice. She excels at creating vivid, believable protagonists, and even her minor characters are full of life, such as the eccentric assortment of relatives who gather on Friday nights for Shabbat dinners. When Lizbet's mother obliviously offends their more religious in-laws by serving cream-of-chicken soup at dinner, Lizbet quips, "Even half-arsed Jews like us didn't tend to eat meat and dairy produce in the same meal. Even our parents' neighbor, Letty Jackson, who kept a kosher home but ate bacon sandwiches in her car (it was a Saab -- I think she thought it neutral territory, like Sweden), drew the line at adding butter."

Lizbet's emotional tailspin after a miscarriage drives much of the narrative, and anyone who has lost a baby is likely to appreciate her poignant reaction. "My moron body still thought it was pregnant -- it mocked me with two blue lines on the test I did, after. I felt empty -- because I was. Like one of those cheap hollow chocolate eggs, what were they called, Kinder Surprise. Surprise, your kinder's dead." But well-drawn characters like Lizbet are trapped here inside a story where too much of the action hinges on misread signals and the frustrating inability of otherwise articulate people to express themselves.

The formulaic plot may be beside the point, though, since enjoyment of this book is likely to have more to do with one's reaction to the words "chick lit" than with literary construction. There seems to be an endless "whither chick lit" debate in blogs and on the pages of book reviews lately. Is the genre dead or alive, and is it an embarrassment to be caught on the subway engaged in a light read? A borderline contentious exchange on a recent Wall Street Journal blog, sparked by a discussion of Emily Giffin's bestseller Baby Proof, had career women bickering about their reading habits, with one participant arguing defensively that her 60-hour-a-week job entitled her to digest some "mind candy." Meanwhile, Janet Maslin, writing in the New York Times this summer, declared that chick lit "appears to be in its death throes," although an article in the same newspaper exactly three months earlier had reported on its increasing global appeal.

Not yet out of her thirties, Maxted seems to be evolving stylistically, with this effort being sharper and more emotionally complex than the early books that established her name. Already something of a grand dame of the genre, she probably doesn't waste much time fretting about the musings of industry trend spotters, or the sorts of labels that are slapped on her books.

Reviewed by Susan Coll
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult; First Edition. 1 in number line edition (August 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525949739
• ISBN-13: 978-0525949732
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,030,356 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than chick lit, November 22, 2006

By	Monysmom "monysmom" (New Hampshire) - See all my reviews

I really enjoyed this book - usually I like Anna Maxted's book for the character's wit and sarcastic style. These characters were less funny, but more human. The two main characters, Cassie and Lizbet are sisters, and the book delves into their relationship with each other, their partners, inlaws, neighbors and friends and extended family, and their parents. The book really examines what "family" is, when you get out of the "made for TV" definition.
If you are looking for fluff chick lit, a book to pass a weekend with, it's not for you. If you're looking for a really good book on a par with, say, Lolly Winston's "Good Grief", this is for you.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Slow Starting but another Good Read from Anna Maxted, September 19, 2006

By	Loves Books (Maryland USA) - See all my reviews

I found this book a bit slow starting and it took two tries before I got involved enough to continue, as the story seemed to start almost in progress.

The book was a bit of a departure from the other Maxted books I've read, and I think I've read them all. The central characters weren't youthful gals, but women in their 30's in relationships. As with most of her books, A Tale of Two Sisters deals with serious and even sad issues with humor.

It was difficult at times to like some of the characters, but I believe that was her point and isn't that true of people in general? Anna Maxted does a good job of developing characters that are more realistic than most authors can manage - people who are lovable but may have annoying traits or aspects of their personalities. Sometimes the story itself is incidental to the quirky characters and the backgrounds and interaction between them, which distinguishes her books from those of lesser authors. In this book, she seemed to show how people can evolve and change as life happens to them - and the many ways in which different people show their love. As the story progressed, it seemed the sisters grew up enough to finally accept that while their parents didn't always give them what they wanted emotionally, they did the best they could and that they did love them.

I wouldn't say this was Anna Maxted's funniest or best book, but it's certainly worth a read - and the subject matter (adoption, miscarriage, fertility, etc.) are ones that many people will be able to relate to - and I think you'll find yourself thinking of the characters after the book is done.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars so much more than chick lit, July 13, 2006

By	Louise Wynne - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Tale of Two Sisters (Paperback)

This book is hilarious, funny, and clever and sad - I really loved it. It's a good read, but it has emotional depth, and the characters are very entertaining - I am in love with both the heroes, especially Tim! The stuff about Lisbet writing for the mens' magazine made me laugh out loud - and her story, the sad bits, made me cry. This is a lot more than chick lit - it is meaty writing for grown up girls - it's about family, babies, love, marriage, it's just all so TRUE! - a brilliant juicy read.