Pieces of My Sister's Life

The story, of sisters Kerry and Eve, will grab you from page one and gently tug at your heartstrings throughout this eloquently written novel. Charged with emotional complexities it is one part love story, one part mystery and filled with plenty of family dynamics, sibling rivalry, and even a quiet sort of wisdom. In someone else's hands the theme itself could have become cliché but the author writes with such authenticity that everything is fresh and believable. In fact it's so well written that it's hard to believe it's a first novel. The prose is clear and concise with just the right amount of description in all the right places. The rhythm is perfect and the sequence of events flows easily back and forth between past and present slowly exposing the family secrets. The characters are superb and the suspense is terrific. I couldn't put this book down! Best of all, the story is truly moving. I cried my eyes out through the last one hundred pages (in both the happy and the sad parts). The ending is fantastic, not at all what I expected, but the absolutely best way it could have ended. I'm adding this book to my list of all-time favorites and recommending it to everyone I know.

I am a fond reader of Anita Shreve and I am deeply moved by Shreve's competent portraits of conflicts and desires on a relatively closed circle. When I first read reviews of Elizabeth Joy Arnold's "Pieces of My Sister's Life", I was at best skeptical as to whether this debut novel would live up to the standards set, among others, by Anita Shreve. After reading the book, I am thrilled to see that the themes of conflict, desire, the inevitability of death were beautifully and movingly expressed without any emphasis on the backgound developments as the novel is set on an island.

I am an avid reader but only once or twice several years ago have I been so moved by a book that I had to sit down the minute I turned the last page and write to the author!! Elizabeth Joy Arnolds " Pieces of my sister" will go down as one of my all time favorites! I cant stop thinking about Kerry, Eve and Justin and their unbelievable journey. Every beautifully written word in this novel gripped me like a vice. I sent an e-mail out to all of my friends who love reading as much as I do and told them to PUT DOWN whatever they were reading and start this book. I know they will all love it as much as I did. So now I'm telling you, stop what your doing and pick up this book. You will not be sorry!!!

I read an average of 5 books a week, and have for some 45 years, and this will be one of my all time favorites. I almost didn't buy it, expecting a book written by a woman to be some silly romance. I'm so glad I changed my mind. The characters were so real, it was as if I were living with them for two days. The twins reminded me a lot of my two youngest daughters growing up. A good friend is in the final stages of cancer so I guess that part hit home too, it was all very believable. I had to go to the front of the book and find the "this is a work of fiction etc." statement to convince myself that it was fiction. It felt a little like "The Prince of Tides", a little like "Terms of Endearment", but on the whole it was completley original.

"Pieces of My Sister's Life" appears to be a summer romance novel, but it is so much more. Beautifully written, it tells a story of abandonment, self-sufficiency, betrayal, responsibility and love. You will come to care for the main characters in the first few chapters, and find yourself torn by which sister to cheer for on any given page. I could almost feel the ocean breezes, smell the saltiness in the air, see the emotions the girls wear on their faces and hear the shifts of inflection in the voices of the characters. The taste of tears, for joy and sadness, is tucked away in the pages as well. Elizabeth Joy Arnold, using all five senses, shows the differences between love as a child, and the sometimes harsh reality of love as an adult.