Name: Sister of My Heart
ISBN: 9780552997676

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Born in a big old Calcutta house on the same night, the wild, tragic night their fathers were both mysteriously lost, Sudha and Anju are cousins. Closer even than sisters, they share clothes, possessions, worries, dreams - and three mothers, who preside o

Sister of My Heart

A Novel

Sarah Sammis

Similar read to This Time Will Be Different

The narration (words chosen) while poetic throughout, crafts a rather flat narrative (story). I never really connected with either. Instead I found the tale of their fortune seeking fathers the most interesting piece of the book, even though (perhaps because of) they failed utterly.

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Trish

This is actually the second novel I've read by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, the first being The Conch Bearer which was part of my 9th Grade english curriculum. I don't remember much about that book, but I don't think I liked it all that much. That being said, Sister of My Heart is completely different in plot, characters, setting, and situation from The Conch Bearer. I think this is Divakaruni's comfort zone - where she can write about places, relationships, traditions, and myths that she's familiar with. 

At the crux of this story is the relationship between two sisters, Anju and Sudha. Both go through life feeling a sense of responsibility for the other's happiness. Anju feels it is her duty as the "older sister" to ensure Sudha's happiness as she was the one to "call" Sudha out into the world. Likewise, Sudha grows up bearing the burden of knowing that her father was responsible for Anju's father's death and spends her life sacrificing her own happiness for Anju - hoping that somehow this would make up for her father's sins and balance her family's karma. All this selflessness and secrecy obviously leads to family drama that tests the strength of the sisters' bond. Even as their lives diverge, priorities change and fate plays cruel games with their plans and emotions, the sisters always find solace and relief in the voices and arms of each other.

The story is told from the POV of both Sudha and Anju, in alternating chapters. As a writer, Divakaruni succeeded in letting the two girls' voices/narratives grow and mature with their age. In the beginning chapters the characters' woes and whims appear childish and silly and I had difficulty feeling anything but indifference for either Sudha or Anju. I also had trouble telling the two apart to be quite honest. But as I got further and further into the novel, I realized that it must have been a literary choice - when the girls were young, they were inseparable and indistinguishable. They were sisters, almost like conjoined twins or shadows of one another, their individualities had yet to develop. As they grew to teenagers and young adults, their personalities shone through their thoughts and dialogues and it was easy to fall into step with which story belonged to which girl. What was really amazing was how Anju's voice changed once she moved to America. My mother claimed the same change in herself when she migrated to America from Calcutta after her marriage to my dad. I love that Divakaruni paid attention to the little details and acknowledged that people's way of thinking, way of speaking, and way of living change when they move to another country and that the development was so very apparent in Anju's chapters. 

As an only child, I sometimes find it difficult to relate to the selfless nature that comes with being a sibling. I can't imagine sacrificing my love, my happiness, my future for another person. But that doesn't mean I don't like reading about it. Some of my favorite books explore the complex relationship between sisters and brothers and, more often than not, I find myself longing for a relationship that intimate and pure to share my happiness and sorrows. 

The only complaint I have is that this book is clearly set up for a sequel. And even though it may have been a pre-planned series, I hate when novels don't have a definitive end or resolution. This one kind of leaves the plot, characters, and readers hanging, waiting for the next page. It's a good publishing tactic as I've already ordered the sequel on Amazon since I absolutely MUST know what happens now that Sudha is in America with Anju and Sunil, but I still would have liked a better wrap-up for the first novel of the duology.

Sister of My Heart

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