Name: The night sister
ISBN: 9780385681483

Jennifer McMahon

a novel

The night sister

Colleen

This review contains spoilers.

The Night Sister was this month's book club selection. It seemed perfect to have a spooky thriller around Halloween. I was hoping that this book might even fulfill my "book that scared you" category of my reading challenge. No such luck.

If I had to describe this book in one word, I would say "underwhelming." It wasn't particularly bad. But I did not find it thrilling, scary, or even particularly engaging. The story jumps between three time periods. While I readily admit that nonlinear stories are often an annoyance, the format was not my major quandary with this book. Although I have a growing suspicion that jumping back and forth in time is a ploy most used to disguise a thinly spread plot.

I didn't particularly care for any of the characters. And I wasn't terribly absorbed in what they were doing either. I was most interested in the current day events, and my interest waned with each preceding increment of time. The present events had more intrigue. The adolescent adventures of Amy and her friends were mildly interesting but only in their context of how they would lead to later events. But I found the childhood of Rose to be dull and tedious for the most part and too full of mundane angst and self-pity. 

(view spoiler)[The majority of the book teeters between being paranormal or having a logical explanation. While at first this was interesting, it quickly wore thin. The "Is it? Is it not?" suspense was not strong enough to carry the story. I would have enjoyed it more if the "monsters" were revealed sooner. But having a rational alternative explanation for most of the book took any spookiness out of the story. After many chapters of "Well, she's probably crazy," you are suddenly presented with, "No! The monsters are real!!" and expected to be scared. I didn't get a single chill or goosebump the entire read. If the paranormal aspect had been cemented sooner, I would have been more intrigued. I love when mythology and lore is tied into a story, and there certainly is background about maeres. But the story does not really delve into that. Instead it dumps the "real" monsters onto the reader at the last minute and expects you to be scared by them. 

The ending was anticlimactic, did not particularly make sense, and was one step short of everyone skipping off into the sunset (but without actually resolving anything). The characters were not particularly well developed or consistent. For example, two characters hoarding years of unrequited stalker love suddenly get over it and move on with self actualization worthy of a Lifetime movie. In the end, none of what had happened really seemed to matter. A lot of people were dead and a couple of people knew the truth to a long-held secret. The end. (hide spoiler)] As I said, not bad per say, but definitely underwhelming.

The night sister a novel

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