The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

The Andreas sisters have been cursed, cursed with having a father obsessed with Shakespeare and giving them names that have a whole life already attached to them: Rose (Rosalind from As You Like It), Bean (Bianca from The Taming of the Shrew) and Cordelia (King Lear). Constantly fighting against their roles, the sisters lives are vividly spent within books. TV is something other people had, these sisters grew up in a world of books. Their father reads only his Shakespeare and dispenses advice and information by photocopying highlighted passages from these plays. Their mother drifts along in her own world, reading and discarding books all over the house.

The sisters, of course have grown up now, Bean lives in New York, Cordelia is travelling around with no fixed plan and Rose has stayed at home, looking after her ageing parents and working at the University like her father.
But all sisters have secrets and these secrets eventually have a way of working their way to the surface and destroying the careful balance of life. With all the sisters once again at home, faced with their mother's cancer and with their own mysterious secrets bubbling close to the surface, it is only a matter of time...

Now, I really loved this book, it was beautifully written and captures the relationship between three very different sisters perfectly. The constant need for attention, the desire to be special, the only child if just for one day drives them and makes them constantly compete for this affection. Being a bookish person, I loved the idea of a family that loved reading so much no one would dare walk outside without a book. That reading was akin to breathing, without what would you do to pass the time? I must confess I am also one of 3 sisters, while we do not call ourselves 'weird' or have names with such heavy expectations, we are very like these characters. It was so refreshing and interesting to read a story about sisters who felt real.

I also loved the family dynamics, the world of fantasy, the bookish-ness of the whole novel, the fact that I read it in 2 days (last weekend, I am late in posting!) curled up in the British sunshine. This novel was delectable and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who has siblings and to all of you out there who grew up with a TV, but wished you had a house of books instead.