Thursday, February 27, 2014

Thursday Not A Construction Update; Moon Sisters Instead

I wish I could share some pictures of construction progress with you, but there are not a lot of visible differences since last week.  The Lazy Susan cupboard was cracked when it arrived, so we are in a holding pattern right now, waiting for its replacement to come in.  Our one-man construction crew has been getting trim up around the windows, but that's about all I notice when I get home from work.  

Ah, work.  And work, and work and work.  This week we have parent/teacher conferences, so that means two twelve hour days.  I am fortunate to not have a schedule for conferences, and I will have time to get a lot of things caught up - or so I hope.  But it has made things at home a bit hectic. I am looking forward to a day off tomorrow; the to-do list has already been made.

And because of being busy, I have somehow fallen behind on my book reviews.

The Moon Sisters by Therese Walsh is one of the titles I received in February from Amazon Vine.  

Jazz and Olivia are sisters, more different than alike.  Jazz is logical and practical, while Olivia is a bit more like their mother - emotional and able to feel and see things others can't, something she relies on since she is legally blind. This sixth sense, synesthesia, allows Olivia to taste certain words and associate colors and smells with things. Their mother suffers from bouts of depression, casting a gloom over the girls' childhood.

When Jazz and Olivia's mother dies of an apparent suicide, the tension that has always plagued the sisters' relationship becomes greater as they must deal with each other and the way they have always perceived each other.  

As much as Jazz is irritated by her sister, when Olivia travels to the Monongahela Forest to find the location of her mother's unfinished novel, Jazz decides she must go along and help her. The pair encounter some train hoppers which adds a bit of excitement to the novel, as they embark on this quest.

The Moon Sisters is about the relationship between Olivia and Jazz, the sisterly bonds that bind them to each other despite their differences. But it is also about the relationship they had with their mother, and how their mother's feelings about them and perceptions shaped they way they saw each other. 

Walsh's novel is satisfying - not a happy story, but engaging to read, and one that was hard to put down.

1 comment:

Ti said...

Cabinets always seem to have issues. Ours were okay going in but the granite counterop was the wrong color and then they couldn't get the correct color so they made the decision for us one day and it was horrible with the color cabinets we chose. That set us back like, 3 weeks. So frustrating. And that was our old house. We moved as soon it was all done. Ha!

I didn't pick up The Moon Sisters. I was turned off by one of the sister's names (Jazz). It just seemed like a weird name to me. LOL.