Review: The Bird Sisters by Rebecca Rasmussen

Title: The Bird Sisters
Author: Rebecca Rasmussen
Publisher: Crown
Publish Date: April 12, 2011
Source: Library

 Why You're Reading This Book:

• You like personality heavy books.
• You like 3D characters.
• You like sibling stories.

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "When a bird flies into a window in Spring Green, Wisconsin, sisters Milly and Twiss get a visit. Twiss listens to the birds' heartbeats, assessing what she can fix and what she can't, while Milly listens to the heartaches of the people who've brought them. These spinster sisters have spent their lives nursing people and birds back to health.

But back in the summer of 1947, Milly and Twiss knew nothing about trying to mend what had been accidentally broken. Milly was known as a great beauty with emerald eyes and Twiss was a brazen wild child who never wore a dress or did what she was told. That was the summer their golf pro father got into an accident that cost him both his swing and his charm, and their mother, the daughter of a wealthy jeweler, finally admitted their hardscrabble lives wouldn't change. It was the summer their priest, Father Rice, announced that God didn't exist and ran off to Mexico, and a boy named Asa finally caught Milly's eye. And, most unforgettably, it was the summer their cousin Bett came down from a town called Deadwater and changed the course of their lives forever."

My Two Cents:

This is a story about family, loss and sisterhood. Twiss and Milly grew up with their parents who were not particularly happy with their marriage and not afraid to show it. The sisters' dad is not a great guy. He's a golf pro who only seems to care about one thing: golf. The sisters' mother feels like she gave up too much when she married her husband and certainly isn't shy about showing her feelings in front of the girls. It's not a happy home. Twiss and Milly cling to each other and seem almost fixed in position. One summer will change all of their lives and not for the better. Their cousin, Bett, comes to stay with them and changes their entire family dynamic.

I really liked the characters of both Twiss and Milly. They're different in both ways and are both really vivid. I felt like you got a really good understanding about why they acted the way that they did and why things ended up like they did: two spinster sisters living in their family home and in many ways, not moving forward from when their lives changed that summer. In a way, I kind of didn't get why the events that summer stopped the girls from really moving on. It makes it even more sad that they weren't able to go forward after everything that happened.

This is not a happy book really but the writing draws you in so much that I hardly cared. I don't necessarily need a happy ending to feel fulfilled!