I See You Everywhere

I loved this book. It tells a difficult, heartbreaking story, and does not flinch from an unhappy ending. Yet...the ultimately sad journey is redeemed by the beautiful storytelling that is used to unravel the complex and difficult relationship between two sisters. It is the type of book that is so well told that I immediately wanted to read more of the author, simply to see if this was a fluke or whether she is truly as brilliantly talented as she seems in this book....I hope the latter proves true.

This is the story of Louisa and Clement Jardine, two sisters born four years apart. It's told from their alternating points of view and the story spans two and a half decades. Louisa is the oldest and we see her as a diligent student, a calm and cautious person, a planner who yearns for a happy marriage and a career as an artist. She is a Harvard graduate. Clem, on the other hand, is the proverbial wild child. She is the charismatic favorite child, she is restless, she has a wandering spirit and she likes good looking men and they like her back. Growing up the girls seemed to compete for everything, including boys. They were raised by a mother who seemed more interested in the dogs she was raising and a father who seemed as intimidated by their mother as were her dogs. Louisa follows a man to California, gets dumped by him and eventually winds up in New York as an arts editor for a magazine. She suffers through breast cancer, two marriages and an affair while Clem goes through some good looking, hunky guys before she winds up in the Rocky Mountains as an animal biologist. The sisters seem closer when they are apart and just as I was wondering just where Ms. Glass was going with this, tragedy strikes and all of a sudden I knew exactly just what this book was all about. I might have given up had it not been for the gorgeous prose and the fact that Ms. Glass really made me fall in love with both of these girls. She did that to me with THREE JUNES as well. I loved just about that whole family. In short, this is a very good book about two sisters who as are bonded as Ms. Glass describes, "like a double helix, two souls coiling around a common axis, joined yet never touching. Sisters everywhere will love this book. And even if you don't have a sister, I'm betting you'll love it too.

This is a novel about two sisters from a well to do Rhode Island Family that spans a quarter of a century. Louisa the older by four years is pragmatic, predictable, but at times not very perceptive. Clem the younger is wild and carefree, drawn to men who are drawn to her and she is kind of a rebel. Clem is the favorite child and Louisa resents it, though (and at times it's maybe a little difficult to wrap your mind around) she loves Clem. Louisa follows a man to California, gets dumped, gets married, has an affair, gets divorced, gets married again and we never really get to know these men she's involved with, though we do get to understand Louisa. Clem travels around a lot, trying to save this or that animal (she becomes a wildlife biologist) and falling in and out of love with the kind of a man you'd expect to find in your favorite Harlequin Romance. Louisa settles in New York, is into pottery, gets a job with an art magazine, gets breast cancer, survives and moves on as the book moves on as well. These sisters and their tragedies and rivalries will captivate you and keep your attention as you read through the pages. At times the book slows down and at times it may seem a bit like chick-lit, but the last third or so of the book will grab you by the heart and won't let go.

To begin with, I have to tell you that I LOVED "Three Junes" and bought a second copy of it to loan out to friends. With that in mind, I was curious if this new book would be as good or if I would end up feeling disappointed. By page three, I thought "Wow! If this keeps up it will be outstanding" -- and it was. It was a book that I found myself torn between hurrying to finish so I could find out what was going to happen and wanting to slow down to make it last and savor the writing. I have a friend who reads every book twice -- once to get the story content and the second time to enjoy the language/nuances. I am thinking that might be a good idea with this one. The book is told from the perspective of two sisters who have a very complicated and intertwined relationship. At the beginning of each segment, there is a header with the date and the text immedidately begins with one of the sister's narratives. I really liked the way it was structured since sometimes the gaps between sections was years and some times only months. It often took awhile to discover which sister was speaking and you had to piece together what had happened in the interim time period. It added a bit of suspense and really kept me engrossed in the story and the maturation/growth each sister was experiencing. It also was refreshing as I moved from one time period to the next since the stories were so vastly different -- what was happening in the sisters' lives shifted constantly. I saw in the "professional" review a reference to chick-lit and I have to strongly disagree with that categorization. That particular term does a diservice to the wonderful, rich and robust novel that this is. Most chick-lit that I read I think of being good for the beach and easily forgotten when finished. This book is well-written, thought-provoking and fabulous. One of the best books I have read all year !