Review For THE ALMOST SISTERS By Joshilyn Jackson- 5*

Title: The Almost Sisters 

Author: Joshilyn Jackson

Genre: Women's Fiction

Rating: * * * * *

Publishers: William Morrow

(July 11, 2017)

Hardback: 352 pages

ISBN: 978-0062105714

FTC Disclosure: Copy from library

WITH EMPATHY, GRACE, HUMOR, AND PIERCING INSIGHT, THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF GODS IN ALABAMA PENS A POWERFUL, EMOTIONALLY RESONANT NOVEL OF THE SOUTH THAT CONFRONTS THE TRUTH ABOUT FAMILY, RACE, AND THE DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN PERCEPTION AND REALITY—THE STORIES WE TELL OURSELVES ABOUT OUR ORIGINS AND WHO WE REALLY ARE

Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs’s weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comic-book convention, the usually level-headed graphic novel artist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman. She remembers he was tall, black, and an excellent French kisser—but not much else.

It turns out the Caped Crusader has left her with more than just a fond, fuzzy memory. That pink plus sign on the stick isn’t wrong: she’s having a baby—an unexpected but not unhappy development. She always wanted to fall in love and have a child, but as a young woman, she learned exactly what betrayal felt like. Now she’s thirty-eight and dead single, having walked—no, run—away from every man she might have married, trying to avoid more loss, more regrets.

Before Leia can break the news of her impending single-motherhood (including the fact that her baby is biracial) to her conventional lily-white Southern family, her perfect stepsister Rachel’s marriage implodes. Leia wants to help, but Rachel is married to the very man who broke her heart all those years ago. Worse, she learns her beloved ninety-year-old grandmother, Birchie, has been hiding her rapidly progressing dementia with the help of her lifelong best friend, Wattie. Birchie is Leia’s only living paternal relative, a proper yet fierce woman who has long lived by her own rules in Birchville, Alabama, the small town her family founded generations back. Now this grande dame has started a row at the church fish fry that has set every tongue wagging, pitted neighbor against neighbor, and made it plain to Leia that her grandmother needs some serious looking after.

Heading seven hundred miles south, Leia plans to put Birchie’s affairs in order, clean out the big Victorian that has been in the Birch family for generations, and break the news of her blessed event. Yet just when Leia thinks she’s got it all under control, she learns that illness is not the only thing Birchie’s been hiding. Tucked away in a trunk in the attic is a dangerous secret with roots that reach all the way back to the Civil War. Its exposure threatens the family’s freedom and future, and will change everything about how Leia sees herself and her sister, her unborn son and the possibilities of his absent father, and the warm and friendly—yet deeply flawed and contradictory—world she thinks she knows.

Enchanting, wry, honest, and hopeful, The Almost Sisters compels us to explore our own origins and the stories we tell ourselves.

I read a lot of great books each year and twice that many good books. This book was just so much more than great. It made me laugh out loud, cry a few tears and nod my head with understanding when reading about this small southern Baptist town. This author so knew what she was talking about when she expounded on this small town. Been there, grew up there and it ain't changed a damn bit!
This book has so many layers- family loyalty, a budding romance, unplanned pregnancy, second chance romance, family secrets, racial tension, and a fabulous mystery in a trunk. If this is not optioned for a movie, I'll be so surprised. There is little I can say that has not already been said about this book but it has definitely risen to the top of the list of books that I will try to push on every reader in my orbit so anyone that knows me just give up now and read this fabulous book. Just know that once you start it everything else will go to the wayside till you finish that last page.


View all my reviews

Jackson's latest novel, THE OPPOSITE OF EVERYONE, is now out in paperback. Her new book, THE ALMOST SISTERS, launches July 11th, 2017

New York Times Bestselling novelist Joshilyn Jackson is the author of gods in Alabama, Between, Georgia, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, Backseat Saints, A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty, and Someone Else's Love Story. Her books have been translated into a dozen languages, won SIBA’s novel of the year, twice been a #1 Book Sense Pick, and three times been shortlisted for the Townsend prize. A former actor, Jackson reads the audio versions of her novels; her work in this field has been nominated for the Audie Award, was selected by AudioFile Magazine for their best of the year list, and garnered two Listen Up Awards from Publisher’s Weekly.

She lives in Decatur, Georgia with her husband, their two children, and way too many feckless animals.