Review of 'Names My Sisters Call me'

#NamesMySistersCallMe by #MeganCrane is a book that has been on my list since 2010 or so. But now that I have finished it, I'm a little underwhelmed. What made me put this author on my TBR list and keep her on it for close to eight years? I found #EnglishAsASecondLanguage by the same author hilarious, but I was in my early thirties when I read it. I doubt if I would react to it the same way now. I certainly am not going to try to re-read it.

'Names my sisters call me' is an average book with stereotypical characters. It is the story of three sisters, one a 'free spirit', another a 'control freak' and the third a self-loathing cellist. The cellist gets engaged and then decides to bring about a family reunion. Her freespirited sister created a scene at the control freak sister's wedding six years ago and took off with the cellist's boyfriend. After that they have remained estranged ever since. Over the course of the story, we find the cellist torn between her ex-boyfriend and her current fiancé, who seems to be the only decent person in the book.

She has a best friend who keeps warning her against the ex, and somehow in the end she has an epiphany when she "realises" that all her longing for her ex is 'coz her dad took off on them when she was a child in the womb. Also turns out her sisters are jealous of her.

This seemed to me like a book written by someone who has done Psychology 101 as an elective subject, who decided to put the most predictable issues into her book. Quite a yawn, but I persisted with it and finished the book. It's a very average read and hardly funny. I would give it a 2/5.

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