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Henry's Sisters (2009)

by Cathy Lamb(Favorite Author)

4.05 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0758229542 (ISBN13: 9780758229540)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Kensington

review 1: In my opinion, the characters fell flat as a pancake in this novel. The three sisters grew up in an extremely neglectful home, raised by a mother steeped in false pride and deep depression that sent her to bed for months. The father abandoned the family due to PTSD after fighting in Nam. All her kids suffered from parentification--becoming the parent to the parent to survive. Yet, all of the daughters had successful careers with rich incomes--successful crime writer, photographer all over the world, and a kindergarten teacher with two children. Who manages that with those neglectful childhoods? Hard to swallow.Being a writer myself, I found Janie's success as a crime writer, with her OCD and trepidations, gravely unconvincing. For example, she was a timid personality stee... moreped in meditative practices who suffered from OCD and hated conflcit. Yet, she would physically punch out her hated brother-in-law and call him every scum bag name that existed. Totally unconvincing and confusing in character development.For example, as early as page 53, the words "get laid", "sex with a female King Kong", "loose slut", "sliced off a ball", "boobs the size of Kentucky", "f*** face", and "scumfuzz".......explain the behaviors. If I'm going to spend time reading a book, I want substance, not trash talk. These dysfunctional sisters are all lunatics.Lamb used wild physical action rather than thoughtful, inner dialogue to develop her characters. The physical fights (to show personality through action, I guess) seemed to do no real harm. The sisters would punch people out only to have them get up and punch them out again. The fat sister was edgy, angry and verbally pummeled anyone that crossed her path. My experience is that often overweight individuals use food to push down there anger rather than express it physically and/or verbally-again, a contradictory personality that fell flat for me. Most of the time . I could see it on the TV screen as a Saturday cartoon better than a story in a book. Then the rape scene with Isabella felt overly written. This book felt like it was written by an amateur.There were one or two paragraphs scattered throughout the book that started to go deeper with interesting thoughts and emotions only to be abandoned before turning the page. I felt cheated as if these characters were cartoon characters rather than real people. One minute they would be crying hysterically and the next minute calling others names with grave insensitivity. They didn't ring true as real people.The only believable dialogue that offered some emotional depth was that of Father Mike and the mentally challenged brother, Henry. Lamb seemed to have done her research for those two characters, but the others were inconsistent in their personalities and actions. In my sixteen years as a (now retired) social worker, I met a lot of people/clients along the way but none as dramatic and inconsistent as Lamb's characters. Usually people who grow up with this kind of abuse/neglect don't feel good enough to develop their potential to the highest like these sisters did. Moreover, the Grandmother suffered dementia, and she seemed totally out of character for a person who suffers this kind of deterioration. I guess her character was suppose to create levity in all the dysfunction, but I found it implausible. It was a fast read because it was mainly based on action, not deeply developed internal workings of the characters. It had a Hollywood ending with everything coming together, each character becoming centered and overcoming her past.I doubt I would read another Cathy Lamb novel if the others are anything like this one. I prefer books that are more plausible and with more substance.
review 2: When I started this book, I thought this is crazy why am I reading this. The Grandmother has dementia thinks she's Amelia Erhart, The Mother is mean as a snake, Henry is a special needs sone that everyone loves and then there are 3 crazy grown up daughters. The Father leaves when the girls are young and they all have a HORRIBLE childhood. It's quite a journey for all of them. The book had me crying in the end. less

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