TLC Book Tours Book Review: Almost Sisters

About The Almost Sisters

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow (July 11, 2017)

With empathy, grace, humor, and piercing insight, the author of gods in Alabama pens a powerful, emotionally resonant novel of the South that confronts the truth about privilege, family, and the distinctions between perception and reality---the stories we tell ourselves about our origins and who we really are.

Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs’ weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comics convention, the usually level-headed graphic novelist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman.

It turns out the caped crusader has left her with more than just a nice, fuzzy memory. She’s having a baby boy—an unexpected but not unhappy development in the thirty-eight year-old’s life. But before Leia can break the news of her impending single-motherhood (including the fact that her baby is biracial) to her conventional, Southern family, her step-sister Rachel’s marriage implodes. Worse, she learns her beloved ninety-year-old grandmother, Birchie, is losing her mind, and she’s been hiding her dementia with the help of Wattie, her best friend since girlhood.

Leia returns to Alabama to put her grandmother’s affairs in order, clean out the big Victorian that has been in the Birch family for generations, and tell her family that she’s pregnant. Yet just when Leia thinks she’s got it all under control, she learns that illness is not the only thing Birchie’s been hiding. Tucked in the attic is a dangerous secret with roots that reach all the way back to the Civil War. Its exposure threatens the family’s freedom and future, and it will change everything about how Leia sees herself and her sister, her son and his missing father, and the world she thinks she knows.

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Review:  First things first, this is a book that will make you cry. I like that in a book, really I do. If a book can make me cry then the author knows how to work the readers emotions.

There's so much about this story, from Leia's pregnancy, to her grandmother's Lewy Body Dementia, her sister's crumbling marriage, the whole southern thing.

Leia is an interesting character. She's a comic book artist, with a graphic novel of epic proportions who is now trying to work on the prequel to that novel and having no luck.  The characters from her graphic novel Violence and Violet play a huge part in this story, because both of them are very much a part of Leia.

I have to say, I was a bit confused about the title of the book and cover. Almost Sisters, and sure there's the relationship between Leia and Rachel, but there is so much more to this book than that, and the cover? Well it doesn't fit this book at all.

This book is southern family dysfunction at its best. Its quirky its full of drama and some mystery as well. Its also full of the racism that makes me never want to visit the south. (Seriously, I stop at WV)

The characters are so beautifully written. I especially loved Wattie and Birchie. I wanted to hold them tight so many times and promise to take care of them, so they wouldn't have to leave their home. The mystery that involves Birchie is one that will make you cry. I know when all was revealed at the end, even after we all knew what happened, I cried and I cried, for Birchie. She was perfect.

Then there's Batman. (Yes, he has a name, but I like Digby's dad as Batman). When you finally meet him, you know that Leia picked a winner without even trying.

So yes, Joshilyn writes characters you can related to, care for and fall in love with. They are full of faults and flaws and foibles. They are without a doubt, "REAL."

One of the best books of 2017 in my estimation.

Rating: 5 flowers

About Joshilyn Jackson

Joshilyn Jackson is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels, including gods in Alabama and A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty. Her books have been translated into a dozen languages. A former actor, Jackson is also an award-winning audiobook narrator. She lives in Decatur, Georgia, with her husband and their two children.

Connect with her through her website, Facebook, or Twitter.