Bufflehead Sisters

Some people's lives seem to be more of an experiment on how much one person can take, while other's seem relatively uneventful. This was my gym read. It was so engrossing and riveting, I was doing 2+ hours a day of cardio just so I could keep reading. The last day I was dying to know how it ended, so I did 2.5 hours. This is a story of best friends, unconditional love, many secrets and reveals, and what true friendship is about. It also had the odd twists that life really has.

Janet lives an ordinary life with an ordinary family, growing up against a backdrop of the Vietnam War and the growth of the drug culture. Her parents struggle for a balance between compassion and control and Janet yearns for a sister, a Thelma for her Louise. Then Sophie enters her life. DeLois has Janet describe Sophie as follows: "Her hair was a nest of blond curls that made me think of Goldilocks, and there was a smug look about her mouth that suggested she might have already helped herself to someone's porridge and found it just right." DeLois writes with a magic wand. "One day in late winter, Sophie suggested we dig our way to another country. Not China, she said--they would look for us there. We would dig a hole halfway to China, and then we would veer off toward Amsterdam." DeLois enters the world of two children and shows the reader both how Sophie viewed her dysfunctional family and how Janet viewed her own parents as well as her relationship with the Sophie. The author is as adept at showing the child's view as she is the adolescent view. The imagery she creates is so realistic you'll think you're back in your high school lunchroom, hoping against hope a certain boy will sit with you. A coming of age story, a book about heartbreak and the ways women and men struggle with their wounds, and a tale of everyday lives, Bufflehead Sisters is all that. You may see yourself in the pages. There's something special about Sophie. Every one who meets her thinks so. This reader agrees.

This book is one of the most enjoyable reads I have ever had. The characters grab your interest from the very first paragraph. The exploits of Janet and Sophie keep the reader on the edge of their seat, not wanting to put the book down. The book definately leaves the reader wanting more!

I really enjoyed this story, and would recommend it highly to anyone that has an open mind.

Of the two sisters of the title, Janet is the narrator. Here's how she meets the othere "bufflehead," Sophie. A kindergarten teacher has singled Sophie out for criticism. She makes Sophie stand as she scolds her. DeLois writes: "I stole at glance at Sophie expecting to see my own mortification reflected there. But Sophie looked entirely unperturbed as she gazed around the classroom with her hands in her pockets, like someone who had just stopped by to see what a kindergarten class looked like." DeLois is a great story-teller, and this is a fascinating tale to tell. When the two girls get to junior high, Sophie's strange abilities come more into the story. It seems she can do things like tell fortunes and turn evil back on those from whom it's coming. It makes for one of the best coming of age stories since Holden Caufield rode that taxi through Central Park wondering where all the ducks went in winter. But Sophie and Janet are not goodie-two-shoes. When they get to high school, sex and drugs come into the story. And Sophie's approach to things is, as always, a little different. For example, sometimes when when one of her father's girlfriends is spending the night, she borrows the car keys and goes for a drive. DeLois writes about it: "One night she was driving some woman's car when a policeman signaled her to pull over. She toyed with the idea of outrunning him, she told me, but she wasn't that good with the stock shift yet, and she was just stoned enough to be mesmerized by the flashing blue lights, so she stopped. The cop asked to see her license, and she was forced to admit that she didn't have one. He asked who car she was driving, and she explained that she didn't exactly know, she had found it in her driveway. He asked for her name, and she clammed up. As he crouched down to speak to her at eye level, she had a strange sense of deja vu, and in the middle of his speech about how much trouble she was in, she interrupted. "I know you. You shot my mother." That shut up the cop, because it turns out he did. There's bound to me more "Sophie" books in the future, and when there are, you'll be glad you read this one. It's a great read.