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The Sister

3.12 of 5 stars 3.12 · rating details · 2,093 ratings · 540 reviews

“This lyrical and haunting story of two sisters, their troubling past, and the terrible secrets they each want buried will stay with you long after you close the book.”
—Harlan Coben

“The Sister is a taut, tense tale of the ties that bind—sometimes a little too tightly.”
—Karin Slaughter

From her lookout in the crumbling mansion that was her childhood home, Ginny watches and w...more

Hardcover, 273 pages

Published June 17th 2008 by Knopf (first published 2008)

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Nov 06, 2009 Everyman rated it 1 of 5 stars

The thesis of this book is marginally interesting. The protagonist, now in her 60s, is a recluse with significant mental problems who has lived alone in the crumbling family mansion for several decades. Her sister, whom she has not seen for thirty years, has decided to move "home" for her retirement. The action takes place over a long weekend, but there are extensive flashbacks to fill in the background.

The family are leipdopterists, and the book is filled with far too much moth lore for my tast...more

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Mar 03, 2008 Ashley rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, arc, literary-fiction

This novel is a fascinating exploration of the ways in which the mind can work, distort, and deteriorate. At the outset, this seems to be a fairly simple story of estranged sisters reuniting in their old age. While I could tell from reading the jacket that the real story would probably come in the possible scandal or heartbreak of their estrangement, I wasn't expecting the instability of the narrator.

It's the little things that tip you off gradually to what is happening here. Once you realize th...more

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Jan 22, 2012 Kinga rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Two sisters see meet again after years of estrangement. The air is heavy with resentment and grudges. We learn the story from Ginny the narrator. We hope to get the unbiased account of events because Ginny is supposed to be the reasonable and sensible one, the scientist. Sometimes later we, of course, realise she is a completely unreliable narrator, but as is often in such cases, we can't help but see logic in her reasoning (that bit always worries me, just how far am I from becoming mad myself?...more

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Jul 23, 2008 Jim rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: humanities-geek

This book was loaned to me by a friend of mine who described it as the strangest book she had ever read. My bar for strange has been raised pretty high, so this book had a lot to live up to. Initially, I was surprised to find myself utterly engrossed by something that is the complete opposite of virtually everything in my library. This curious tale of two elderly sisters in an old Victorian house with nothing in common but a forty-year rift and their family's interest in moths was a much more al...more

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Mar 02, 2008 Sarah Null rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club, owned

B&N First Look Advanced Reading Copy.

At first, it was difficult for me to get into this book. Ginny is, as her father was before her, a lepidopterology expert - an expert on moths. But as I continued to read it became clear that there was much more to this story than the study of insects. Told from Ginny's point of view, we remember the past events which bound Ginny and her sister Vivi together and led to their fifty year estrangement, while we also follow the events of the present weekend....more

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Sep 13, 2009 karen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: littry-fiction, books-claiming-to-be-just-like-secr, sshh-family-secrets

so while "the sister is powered by the same sort of confidently rendered literary suspense that propelled donna tartts the secret history onto bestseller lists (nyt)" is not quite the same thing as "books claiming to be just like secret history", it stays on the shelf. because no one can stop me. and the author photo shows the same kind of serious angular beauty as donna tartt, so- similarity. this book is full of things i like - the big crumbling mansion of the traditional gothic, the unreliabl...more

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Oct 10, 2011 Joy H. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: suspense, recommended-by-a-reader-friend, gothic, lepidoptery

_The Sister_ by Poppy Adams (2008)
Added April 26, 2009.

My Goodreads friend, Jeff, recommended this book to me because I enjoyed Diane Setterfield's _The Thirteenth Tale_ so much.

Jeff wrote: "Joy, if you liked The Thirteenth Tale, you'd also probably really like Poppy Adams' The Sister. It's superb gothic storytelling, much like the Setterfield."

I'm looking forward to reading this book.

9/23/11 - I started reading this book several days ago. The author likes to describe things and loses my attenti...more _The Sister_ by Poppy Adams (2008)
Added April 26, 2009.

My Goodreads friend, Jeff, recommended this book to me because I enjoyed Diane Setterfield's _The Thirteenth Tale_ so much.

Jeff wrote: "Joy, if you liked The Thirteenth Tale, you'd also probably really like Poppy Adams' The Sister. It's superb gothic storytelling, much like the Setterfield."

I'm looking forward to reading this book.

9/23/11 - I started reading this book several days ago. The author likes to describe things and loses my attention. So I'm having trouble getting into it. I like a plot to move along. I'm on Chapter 3, p. 32, right now.

10/10/11 - I finished reading this book yesterday. I'm glad I stuck with it because the ending was gripping and suspenseful. While reading the book, I wondered where it was going. It seemed very weird. The characters were very strange.

The story is told in the first person, present tense, by the narrator, Ginny (Virginia Stone). Her sister's name is Vivi (Vivien). Although the story is told in the present tense, the flashbacks and memories are necessarily in the past tense. Using the present tense makes the action very immediate for the reader. Alternating between the different tenses was a bit confusing at times, but not so much as to ruin the story.

Ginny and her father, Clive, were lepidopterists, experts on moths and butterflies, and very dedicated to their research. I learned a good deal about the metamorphosis of these insects from Ginny's detailed explanations. In fact, as I read, I realized what a miracle the changes are: from larvae to caterpillar to butterfly (or moth). The change from a liquid state to a butterfly is amazing (reminding me that we take the chick hatching from an egg for granted).

Along the way there is an interesting discussion of free will, about how the insects go through all their changes without making any choices as to what those changes may be. It's something to think about. On p. 253, while speaking of her actions, Ginny, (speaking first about the domino effect) says: "It is the consequence of my lifetime experiences on the character I was given... It's as strictly governed as a mathematical equation. ... I'd like to think that, for once, I am in control of my actions, but I also like to know I am not."

Once I got into the story, I enjoyed the book, but it was stop and go for a little while. I can now recommend the book as a good read.(less)

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Nov 10, 2008 Colleen rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book had the potential to be really good but didn't live up to those expectations. It wasn't bad and I don't consider it a waste of time but it was just "eh". The characters were not as developed as they could have been and many questions were left unanswered, for example why Vivien finally came back after 47 years. In my opinion, that is a key point to the novel and we never find out. (For those who have already read it, without giving anything away to those who haven't -- why did the auth...more

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Aug 02, 2008 Nancy W'f rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Apr 16, 2009 Robin Nicholas rated it 4 of 5 stars

Interesting (in the odd kind of way) book. It is a story of two sisters who have been estranged for the last 47 years. Out of the blue Vivian just shows up.....to the isolated mansion that Virginia has been living like a hermit in all of her life. The two sisters are in their 70's and one thing becomes apparent to me right away...but isn't really addressed...and probably wouldn't have even been considered when Virginia was a child. Virginia has Asperger's Syndrome. This is manifested in many way...more

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Aug 07, 2008 Jessica rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2008, unfinished

Yawn.

I'm not interested in the anatomy of moths, which seemed to be a huge focus of the book. I got halfway through and decided that there are much more interesting gothic novels out there, and I shouldn't be wasting my time on one that takes so long to develop.

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh, and would reconsider picking this up again if someone convinced me it gets better. Until then, it's back at the library.

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Jun 26, 2008 J-me rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: i-own, just

Wow I have never read a more strange, bizarre and disappointing book. I may have to read it again just to be sure it is as bad as I think it was.

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Jun 25, 2009 Brian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A fascinating debut novel from an author with enormous promise, The Behaviour Of Moths is the neo-gothic story of a dysfunctional family told from the viewpoint of the obsessional, deluded and probably autistic elder daughter, Virginia. Set in a huge, crumbling mansion in Dorset, the narrative focuses on the return of Virginia's younger sister, Vivien and its effect on Virginia's hermetically-sealed senility.

Virginia's youth was spent working alongside her lepidopterist father, Clive and the te...more

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Mar 02, 2009 Stephanie rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

THIS debut novel by English author Poppy Adams has almost all the elements of a campy horror novel. Crumbling mansion in the English countryside -- check. Socially-awkward spinster living alone -- check. Insects -- check.

The only thing it lacks is a sense of horror. Instead, the author presents a slow-burn psychological drama which her publicists have been able to market well -- publishing rights have been sold to the US, Spain, France, Italy, Holland, Germany and Russia.

The narrator is the elde...more THIS debut novel by English author Poppy Adams has almost all the elements of a campy horror novel. Crumbling mansion in the English countryside -- check. Socially-awkward spinster living alone -- check. Insects -- check.

The only thing it lacks is a sense of horror. Instead, the author presents a slow-burn psychological drama which her publicists have been able to market well -- publishing rights have been sold to the US, Spain, France, Italy, Holland, Germany and Russia.

The narrator is the elderly Ginny, who lives alone in her dead parents' crumbling mansion, selling off the antique furniture for groceries and kept company only by the extensive collection of preserved moths left her by her lepidopterist father. Her mothballed life is shaken up when her younger, more vivacious sister Vivien decides to return to the family estate from London, where she has lived since she was a young woman.

Given the fact that the sisters haven't seen each other for decades, it is unsurprising when it turns out that there are some unresolved issues between them. "I was always the sensible sister and Vivi the adventurer," remarks Ginny. Like all her other remarks, this should be taken with a pinch of salt.

The soundness of Ginny's mental health is questionable from the very beginning, when she mentions her obsession with clocks: "I keep a number of clocks just so I can be sure that, even if one or two let me down, I'll always find the correct time." From then on, as the narrative flashes back and forth between the sisters' past and present, it is constant guesswork as you try to read between the lines to see what Ginny can't, or doesn't want to, see.

The author, a film-maker who has worked on science documentaries for the BBC and the Discovery Channel, puts her prior experience with nature to good use in several stomach-turning descriptions of wildlife, such as this one about a pupating caterpillar, which is a vivid memory from Ginny's childhood (and an obvious symbol of the hidden rot in her life):

"The caterpillar's shiny new underskin started to burst all over in tiny little uprisings, one at a time, a gash here, a gash there and then all over, and out of the holes popped the writhing, tapered heads of a totally different creature's larvae, tiny transluvent maggot hungrily eating their way out of the catepillar, devouring the body alive, from within."

But an eerie atmosphere and goosebump-inducing prose can only get you so far. An unreliable narrative becomes rewarding at the point where, despite the assertions of the narrator, the reader catches a glimpse of what the truth is, and shudders at the perversity of the narrator's delusions.

Unfortunately, this point does not come in this book. Incidents from the past -- Vivien's fall from a tower in their childhood, their mother's fatal tumble down the cellar steps at a later date -- are related in Ginny's typically muted manner. But the obvious implications -- that Vivien didn't just fall but was pushed, and their mother too -- seem not only hackneyed, but worse, strangely irrelevant to the rest of the story, which concerns a dead baby which might or might not exist.

On the other hand, actually scintillating details -- certain phrases in conversation, certain actions -- end up as mere passing intrigues, never playing out into anything meaningful.

To the author's credit, there were some wonderfully-written, sinister moments during the narrative when you thought it might develop into something magnificent. Too bad it turned out to be a dull specimen after all.
(less)

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Oct 13, 2008 Amory rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book was really a page-turner for me; I didn't want to put it down. But...

But...the ending was thoroughly disappointing. I felt as if I had read the whole book for nothing. It wasn't even the kind of thing where I could say to myself, "Well, I didn't really like the ending, but I sure loved the rest of the book, so it's ok." That's how I felt when I finished reading Stephen King's It; that the ending wasn't really so satisfying, but all in all, the book was totally worth reading.

All along,...more This book was really a page-turner for me; I didn't want to put it down. But...

But...the ending was thoroughly disappointing. I felt as if I had read the whole book for nothing. It wasn't even the kind of thing where I could say to myself, "Well, I didn't really like the ending, but I sure loved the rest of the book, so it's ok." That's how I felt when I finished reading Stephen King's It; that the ending wasn't really so satisfying, but all in all, the book was totally worth reading.

All along, I felt as if Poppy Adams was alluding to a "shocking secret" about Ginny, building up to the big revelation. Only, the revelation never came. Well, it did come; Vivien told Ginny the truth (whatever that might have been), except Ginny was off in that "other place" in her mind where she went when she didn't want to face the reality of the moment at hand. So, I guess the secret was revealed, only we weren't privy to it since the story is told from Ginny's point of view and Ginny was "elsewhere" at the time.

I had two possibilities in my mind about Ginny as I was reading. I was thinking that she might have had Asberger's syndrome, although at that time no one would have know to call it that. Her inability to read body language and social cues, the "card games" with the doctor during which she was supposed to identify an emotion from a given facial expression... That combined with her vast knowledge on a very narrow topic (moths) seems to point to something like Asberger's. My second thought was that maybe she was an all-out sociopath. She shows absolutely no remorse about having killed Vivien, had no concern whatsoever about whether killing her sister was right or wrong.

So was the family protecting Ginny from herself and from the community because Ginny was different, because she had what would have been perceived as a mental defect back then (Asberger's or something like that)? Or were they protecting her from the fact that she was dangerous and cold-blooded?

And the whole thing with the continuation of her father's moth studies...I'm not sure she really did continue on with anything. Did she have the ability to do everything that was involved with the study of moths on that level? It seemed that she certainly understood the life cycle and behavior patterns of moths, but would she have been able to conduct studies or write reports or apply for grants like her father did?

I can't say I would recommend this book to anyone.(less)

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Feb 28, 2008 A. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-and-literature, arc

Review based on ARC.

This was a fascinating book, by all accounts. The narrator of the book appears, at first glance, to be a "normal" elderly woman, waiting for her sister after almost 50 years of absence. The story she tells is strange and traumatic, yet as the novel progresses, the reader becomes aware that there is not just a little bit hiding below the surface. Through inconsistencies in the narrator's story (not, however, in the author's) and questions almost begging to be asked (though, no...more

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Mar 17, 2009 Cheryl rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: kindle-edition

This started off so very well that I thought I was in for a treat. But about midway through it started to get very bogged down in desciptions of moths and other things related to lepidoptera, which slowed the plot down to a crawl. I found myself skimming over large numbers of pages (going back periodically to see if I'd missed anything of real importance -- I hadn't) and by the time I got to the end I no longer cared what happened to any of the characters or why. When a reader of novels, I'm a c...more

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Aug 14, 2009 Blair rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary

A strange, disquieting read, this book left me feeling both haunted and frustrated. It's skillfully written and the characterisation is excellent, but I couldn't help feeling the story came to an end long before it should have done, leaving too many important questions unanswered. Once it became apparent that Ginny was the quintessential unreliable narrator, I expected a resolution that would reveal the full truth; instead, the reader is left to wonder whether, for example, Ginny's success and f...more

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Jul 29, 2008 Jeanne rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of The Thirteenth Tale

Recommended to Jeanne by: New York Times

I finished this book and immediately asked myself, "What happened?" I have no idea!

Quickly: this is the story of two sisters, Ginny and Vivi. Both grew up in a crazy, old mansion with some crazy parents. Maud was their alcoholic mother, and Clive was their moth-obsessed father. A creepy accident involving Vivi falling from the bell tower (as a child) always looms in the background.

Ginny has always lived in the family home, and Vivi has just returned, as a retiree. The two old sisters haven't see...more

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Jan 03, 2010 Lisa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Lisa by: Gaye

Shelves: 2010, own

Really a 3.5, but as I don't have that option, a 3...

At first glance this is the tale of two estranged sisters, now in their seventies, as they are reunited when Vivien suddenly decides to return to the home they grew up in, a crumbling old Gothic mansion that houses a huge collection of moths thanks to the 'family expertise'. As narrated by Ginny who is now something of a recluse and quite probably autistic, it soon becomes apparent however that something is amiss, as memories the two sisters a...more

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Jul 25, 2009 Anne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a book that I've been looking forward to for a long time and I finished it earlier today. I was completely mesmirised by the writing and enjoyed Ginny's narrative, her pespective of her life and her family members. I would agree that there is a touch of the 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane' about the story, but as that is one of my all time favourite films, this only added to my pleasure.

This is a cleverly written debut novel which explores a distant relationship between the two sisters,...more

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Jan 18, 2009 Jen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009

Good ending + bad, slow beginning + whoa, that's a lotta moths = The Sister

One good quotation:
"Is it really necessary to record your life in order to make it worthwhile or commendable? Is it worthless to die without reference? Surely those testimonials last another generation or two, and even then they don't offer much meaning. We all know we're a mere fleck in the tremendous universal cycle of energy, but no one can abide the thought of their life, lived so intensively and exhaustively, being...more

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Aug 02, 2011 Alun Williams added it · review of another edition

The title reminded me of "The Collector" by John Fowles, and this too is a first novel about somebody who is mentally abnormal.
There is a lot of information about moths in the book, and it is obvious the author has done lots of research, but I was annoyed by lapses. It is hardly likely that an entomologist would refer to spiders or scorpions as insects.
That happens early on, and gradually I started to enjoy the book a lot and worry less about how accurate it was. It is obvious that Virginia, who...more

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Jan 11, 2013 Hannah Wingfield rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Firstly, it’s not all bad – there were a few things I liked about this book, the setting being one. The Behaviour Of Moths takes place in a crumbling mansion in south-west England, a house built on decadence and eras of family history that has slipped into decay. I also liked Poppy Adams’ decision to put unreliable narrator Ginny in the role of chief protagonist, as knowing she did not always tell the truth helped add a layer of suspense. Ginny appears to have Asperger’s, although it is never na...more Firstly, it’s not all bad – there were a few things I liked about this book, the setting being one. The Behaviour Of Moths takes place in a crumbling mansion in south-west England, a house built on decadence and eras of family history that has slipped into decay. I also liked Poppy Adams’ decision to put unreliable narrator Ginny in the role of chief protagonist, as knowing she did not always tell the truth helped add a layer of suspense. Ginny appears to have Asperger’s, although it is never named outright (which annoyed me somewhat: what is gained by keeping the reader guessing on this? Perhaps a respect for not labelling people, but also freedom from being critically appraised for your examination of the topic, as it would be easy to respond to “that’s not what Asperger’s is like!” with “that’s not what I was trying to do anyway!”), and this (in combination with her personality, having a diagnosis does not make you A Diagnosis, after all) gives her an endearingly logical, almost child-like view of the world. These two things (mansion plus Asperger’s) however made me feel as if I was reading a book I’d already read – The Language Of Others by Clare Morrall, to be precise, which also includes both these features and is one of my favourite books. Perhaps these similarities and the inevitable comparison doomed The Behaviour Of Moths to not be loved by me. That said, there were a few other aspects I enjoyed – the sisters’ mother’s alcoholism and the damage it caused to the family was well-handled, I liked the plot twist at the end (which I didn’t see coming, although in hindsight it seems obvious – I’ll just blame sleep deprivation once again for my lacking in the sharpness of mind department), and through the detail invested in depicting Ginny’s work as a “moth expert” I learnt some interesting facts about moths – did you know that when inside a cocoon, changing from caterpillar to moth, they are not slowly transforming from one creature to another, but in liquid form, being utterly dissembled and then perfectly reassembled?

To read my complete review, please click here.(less)

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Dec 02, 2012 Deb rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobooks, bookcrossing-com, mystery-thriller

I had mixed feelings with this audiobook. I loved Juliet Mills reading of the story and I thought that the writing was very good but it seems to drag on a bit too much on the description and study of moths. I can see how the author means to show how Ginny is obsessed with moths and uses the study of moths to relate to the world around her but it did seem that the author could have trimmed these parts down and got on to the interesting bits of the story quicker. I don't want to say too much on th...more

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Sep 16, 2012 Kyle rated it 3 of 5 stars

The first thing that attracted me to this book was it’s unusual cover. Or at least, unusual in the fact that the majority of books covering the table that constituted the Expat library were worn Tom Clancy novels, murder mysteries or historical fiction. The title was enough to pique my interest, then the cover did the rest. Against a dark cream backdrop, a mansion in red with two female figures facing each other on opposite sides of the house (these also in red) and two girls running between two...more The first thing that attracted me to this book was it’s unusual cover. Or at least, unusual in the fact that the majority of books covering the table that constituted the Expat library were worn Tom Clancy novels, murder mysteries or historical fiction. The title was enough to pique my interest, then the cover did the rest. Against a dark cream backdrop, a mansion in red with two female figures facing each other on opposite sides of the house (these also in red) and two girls running between two windswept tree’s in front of the mansion. This is the main decoration, as well as various moth silhouettes at the bottom. Certainly, I picked it up and read the blurb for a closer inspection.

At first, it sounded rather boring. A sister (Vivien) returning to the family home as an old woman, to live out the rest of her days with the narrator, Ginny, a famous lepidopterist and recluse from the world, and the tale of their childhood. However, curiosity overcame this first impression and I brought it back to the table with me. It sat there, looking forlorn for a while, before I picked it up and began to read.

Once again, it seemed a bit slow. In fact, the majority of the book set in the present is rather boring. What really sucked me in were the memories of the past and the mystery of the house. As one reviewer said, it was reminiscent of du Maurier and Rebecca, and I think that’s the most apt analogy I could think possible. Mystery lingers in the house, and you are truly brought into the story by the narrator, who can make the past seem even more vivid than the present.

There’s a reason for this, of course. You see, most of the story set in the present is Ginny eavesdropping on her sister as she moves about the house, while trying to figure out why she’s there. The past is recalled while she does this, as Vivien’s return has brought on a wash of memories for Ginny. She remembers her life as a child, her parents, then a young woman being introduced into the world of being a lepidopterist. These memories, and Vivien’s take on them, is what leads to the rather dramatic conclusion of the novel.

Before moving onto the problems in this novel, I really need to discuss the moths. Moths serve rather more as a background and props for the novel until the end, rather than a major plot point. Their whole presence within the novel is symbolic more than anything by the end. I admit, for most of it, I believed they served simply as a curiosity for the reader and an excuse for Ginny becoming a recluse than anything else. However, by the end, and you’ve seen Ginny’s personality in full, you’ll understand the purpose of the moths just as I did.

Now. The problems. One major problem was the use of first names for the two main characters parents. There is only once that I can remember clearly where the word ‘mummy’ is used. At all other times, first names are used, even when addressing the parents as young children. Perhaps I’m just not aware that’s how middle-class children in the UK addressed their parents in the twentieth century, but from what I know, they didn’t. This irritated me through-out the novel. I would even have preferred the formal ‘mother’ than ‘Maud’. It’s almost as though they were adopted, which is what I thought was the big twist in their past. But no.

Problem two was that despite it being engrossing, it just wasn’t as good as it could have been. I left the book feeling a slight feeling of disappointment. It couldn’t have been the greatest book I’d ever have read, but it could have been one of the best books. But it just didn’t hit that level with me. It’s almost as if the author didn’t try hard enough to make this book worth the praise it could have got.

Score: 3/5(less)

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Jul 07, 2012 Katharine rated it 5 of 5 stars

What a great book! The Sister is about the reunion of two elderly sisters, the secrets that they have kept from each other and the tragedies of the past. Plenty of reviewers have mentioned the plot, I won't do it too much here.
Ginny's younger sister, Vivian has returned to their family mansion after 40+ years for no apparent reason. Ginny is puzzled by her presence, but revisits in flashback many of their childhood adventures and secrets, the most vivid is an accident that left Vivian sterile....more

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Mar 17, 2012 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: english-novels

I wasn't sure what to make of this book and it didn't seem to know what to make of itself because the author deliberately leaves most of the loose ends loose. It has many elements which should add up to something; an unreliable narrator, a crumbling isolated mansion in the English countryside, a dysfunctional family, two ageing sisters, a forty year old rift, a touch of madness, surrogacy, lethal lepidopterists, lots of elements that would make a reasonable gothic tale. Somehow the elements do n...more

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Sep 18, 2011 Laura rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ginny and her younger sister Vivien haven't seen each other for decades, Ginny doesn't know why - from the beginning it's a mystery genre. From Ginny's perspective, the novel opens on the sister's reunion and takes us back to their childhood in flashes of little stories. In between tales of the past, Ginny questions Vivien's actions in the present. Why did she come here now? What does she want?

Early on, Ginny's tone refers to her opinionated rather than factual narration, it is implied that eve...more

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Jul 23, 2011 Cecilia Solis-sublette rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was a pleasant surprise, I must say. The seclusion of the two sisters in a decaying house is always good for a gothic-esque story and the moths in the attic are Bronte-ish. A secluded woman, obsessed with moths. Was it because she was thwarted from becoming a butterfly? Was she the moth that was eaten from the inside out by maggots? The moth info is quite extensive which would lead one to believe that there is something profoundly symbolic here. I would probably have to read it again,...more

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About Poppy Adams

Poppy Adams has worked as a documentary filmmaker for the BBC and the Discovery Channel. She lives with her husband and three children in London, where she is working on her next book.

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Quotes from The Sister

“I love her and hate her at the same time. I even love the parts of her that I hate, her vitality and her colour, her disruption and disorder, her humour and her despair, her conceit and her narcissism, her everything that isn't me.” — 5 people liked it

“Clive convinced himself that it wouldn’t be long before we’d be able to predict all their [the moths] equations of cause and effect, then perhaps even map out each and every cell, and configure them in their entirety as robots, in terms of molecules, chemicals and electrical signals. And what fed this particular obsession was Pupal Soup.

If you cut through a cocoon in mid-winter, a thick creamy liquid will spill out and nothing more. What goes into that cocoon in autumn is a caterpillar and what comes out in spring is entirely different—a moth, complete with papery wings, hair like legs and antennae. Yet this same creature spends winter as a gray-green liquid, a primordial soup. The miraculous meltdown of an animal into a case of fluid chemicals and its exquisite re-generation into a different animal, like a stupendous jigsaw, was a feat that, far from putting off, fed Clive’s obsession. He believed it made his lifetime ambition easier because, however complex it might be, it was, after all, only a jigsaw, and to Clive, that meant it was possible. For all the chemicals required to make a moth were right there in front of his eyes, in the pupal soup.” — 2 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2685421-the-sister?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320410525l/2685421.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2685421-the-sister?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Sister by Poppy Adams[/url]

The Sister

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