THE GEOMETRY OF SISTERS
Luanne Rice
Bantam
Fiction
ISBN: 9780553805130
Everybody knows that sisters have a special bond. Beck Shaw knows this, because she and her older sister Carrie had a great relationship. Travis, the middle child, knows this because he has seen that there are some things about Carrie that she would only tell their little sister and not him. But Carrie has run away, and that means bonds in the family have been broken.
Maura, their mother, has her own sister to think about, because they’ve been estranged for years. She is distressed about her daughter and has done everything she can to get her back. Carrie ran away after being involved in the same accident that killed Maura’s husband, Andy. Finally she decides to move her family from Ohio to Rhode Island, where she will become a teacher at her former school.
Newport Academy is a strange experience, not only for Maura, who keeps running into people connected with those she used to know, but also for Beck, who is just starting high school, and Travis, who is becoming a football star but can’t help feel as if he is adjusting too much compared to his mother and sister. But slowly they all do, while feeling haunted by their individual and collective memories of Carrie and Andy.
Beck becomes a math star, and she and a new friend spend hours trying to find the secret to infinity. Both girls who have lost fathers, they believe this is a way of getting back to them, when in reality it may just be their way of grieving. In addition, Beck investigates an old school mystery regarding a rich student who died in a terrible accident. Mary, the ghost of Newport Academy, also had a sister, and Beck finds solace in reading their shared journals. Her math teacher, Stephen Campbell, develops a relationship with Maura, who feels troubled about an old love affair she had with a man who still lives in Newport --- and who is friends with Stephen. She has a deep, dark, 18-year-old secret, which in turn is a part of Carrie’s reason for running away.
THE GEOMETRY OF SISTERS is, fittingly, as complicated a tale as geometry itself, with interwoven stories and strange connections between people. In that way it reads almost like a thriller, or a movie. However, at its core are emotion and family ties. Sisterhood plays into dozens of relationships and conflicts within the story. Luanne Rice examines how sisterhoods evolve through time and how they can be torn apart.
At times the novel seems too easy --- less literary and more like chick lit. But it manages to stay away from that because of its scope. Constantly changing points of view, it takes us from Beck’s view of her mother and then to her mother’s view of Beck; later we learn what Travis thinks, and how Carrie is functioning without her family. Maybe a bit too jumpy, THE GEOMETRY OF SISTERS is ultimately richer because of its ability to look at the same family from a variety of angles.
This is a good weekend read, because it begs not to be put down until finished. It flows easily and cleverly places suspense and romance throughout to catch a variety of readers. The book is perhaps simple in its writing, but it’s still worth a read.
--- Reviewed by Sarah Hannah Gómez (hannahgomez@gmail.com)
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