Violet on the other hand is a lesbian, psychic medium who predicts a massive earthquake and ends up on local, then national, tv broadcasting her predictions and stirring up old tensions between herself and Daisy/Kate. She starts going by Kate instead, marries a nice sensible boy and has two kids. Daisy even changes her name in college in order to hide from the stories. A less skilled writer would have made Marisa more of a caricature but instead she is craftily constructed.įrom then on Daisy masks her senses and Vi embraces them. Out of context it can seem a bit slack stick but what I like about that line is that it sums up that caustic humour of teenagers.

Quote: She took attendance by calling out our last names, and when she got to Shramm, I raised my hand and said, “Here.” One of my favourite lines in the book is early on at page 67 in a section of dialogue between a substitute teacher doing roll call, Marisa the mean, popular girl and Daisy. The other girl is a popular, rich girl who takes advantage of Daisy to win a boy but then betrays her to the school as a witch. As teens, they aren’t popular girls, twins were less common in the ’70-90s, but they do become a little infamous when Daisy takes a chance and tells another girl that she has ESP. As little girls, the twins have fun playing games guessing at what the other is thinking, which creeps out their mom. Their “senses” help them know things like what a guy likes in a girl and they can sometimes see things like the name of a person who’s kidnapped a little boy.

The story is about twins Daisy and Violet who have ESP. My imagination is too susceptible and maybe that’s why this novel is sort of mesmerizing. I wouldn’t normally go for a book about twins and ESP because although I like magical realism and fantasy, I find things psychic abilities a little creepy. Ĭurtis Sittenfeld is the New York Times bestselling author of American Wife and Prep, neither of which I’ve read so I was keen to get into Sisterland. I was lucky enough to participate in the first National Post Afterword Reading Society where 20 readers reviewed Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel Sisterland.

Sisterland: A great novel about the ying-yang of twins with ESP and the choices 1 makes to try to hide it while the other embraces it.

Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld