Good…but what bugged me about it? This is the kind of book I wish I could write so it feels important to pinpoint what felt off here… All the reviews laud the withholding, the mystery at the heart of the book. But it felt cheap to me. I believe the withholding in the Saunder’s short story “Escape from Spiderhead,” but this controlled the novel—every page was in thrall to big reveal that was coming.

In the Saunders story…you wonder but then you get absorbed in other things of real consequence. This book is an elaborate and overwrought shell game.

I don’t buy the psychological damage that justifies the withholding and when we reach the big reveal…it’s a let down. But if you build something up THAT MUCH, the reveal is bound to disappoint.

There is much to admire here. Great, disturbing, engrossing prose. The twisted relationship between the sisters and the history of abuse that makes it believable. I think the novel mistakes what’s interesting in the story: it’s not “what really happened during the storm!” but rather why a sister would abuse, why one would accept abuse, how an abused sister would mourn their dominating and cruel but devoted older sibling, and how she would feel emancipated when that sister died. How that conflict between grief and relief would be overwhelming for a young woman.

Remedy: the story shouldn’t fixate on the withheld mystery but disclose in flashes —understated flashes.

The reveal should come earlier and the real conflict can proceed from there. ( )

A lesser version of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, with an expected twist. Meh. ( )

An obsessive sibling bond is the driving force behind Daisy Johnson’s novel Sisters, her gothic-tinged follow-up to her first novel, the Booker Prize-shortlisted Everything Under. September and July are the sisters in question, teenage daughters of Sheela and Peter. Born ten months apart, the girls might as well be twins, they are that close in every respect. So close that their teachers have expressed concern, stating that their connection leaves them “isolated, uninterested, conjoined, young for their age, sometimes moved to great cruelty.” As the novel begins, we learn that Sheela, July and September are fleeing the aftermath of a catastrophic event that took place at the girls’ school, leaving their home in Oxford for a house in coastal Yorkshire. It is soon revealed that Peter is dead—victim of a drowning incident—that he was violent and abusive and had been separated from his wife and children for several years at the time of his death. The house in Yorkshire was Peter’s childhood home and belongs to Peter’s sister. Sheela and the girls have been there before; in fact September was born there. But “Settle House,” as it is known, is run down, secluded, creepy: hardly a comforting refuge. Sheela spends most of her time locked in her room, either working (she writes books for children based on her daughters’ fictional adventures) or sleeping, venturing out at night for food and to perform household chores. In the meantime, the girls play games and explore the house and surrounding area. At one point, July and September join a group of young people partying after dark on the beach, an encounter that, in July’s boozy recollection, results in September losing her virginity. At an early point the reader will realize that September’s personality dominates the relationship—that she has a vengeful streak and enjoys taking risks and pushing boundaries—and that July is the follower. Particularly alarming (because of its potential for violence) is the game “September says,” in which July must comply with whatever her sister tells her to do so long as the directive is prefaced by the phrase “September says.” (ie, “September says eat all the mayonnaise.”) Along the way, Johnson drops veiled hints regarding the triggering event that drove the family out of Oxford. This taut, disturbing narrative comes to us mainly via July’s twitchy first-person perspective, briefly interrupted by third-person sections told from Sheela’s more passive point of view. As the action approaches a climax, July grows increasingly distressed by memories pushing through to the surface, and as her agitation deepens the story becomes fractured and surreal. Sisters, blending elements of horror and suspense, generates a peculiar kind of unease. Readers will respond to the ending in a variety of ways, which will make for some lively book-club discussions. But there can be no doubt that Daisy Johnson’s edgy talent and uniquely skewed perspective on the human psyche set her apart from the majority of her contemporaries. ( )

Sisters is an eerie, disconcerting novel about a sadomasochistic, self-sacrificing, and unhealthily symbiotic relationship between two sisters, September and July, born just ten months apart. Living isolated in Yorkshire after an incident at school back in Oxford changes their world, the novel’s claustrophobic and insular world is mirrored by Johnson’s shining prose here.

At times like a chamber drama, and at other times taking a step back to paint broader strokes like a twisted folk tale, the story itself is fairly predictable; however, it’s in the way Johnson paints the inner world of July—not to mention her creepy, taut, supple sentences—that really shines.

Sisters is definitely new territory for Johnson, and that hesitancy does make itself manifest here.

3.5 stars rounded up ( )

In the acknowledgments section at the end of the book, Daisy Johnson thanks her mother “for watching horror films she doesn’t really want to watch with [her]”. I am not surprised. Sisters is a horror story. Of course, given that Johnson is a Booker-shortlisted author, her latest novel will be admired by many readers who would not generally touch the genre with a barge pole. But make no mistake – it’s horror alright.

Sisters starts with that most Gothic of tropes – the haunted house. Sheela and her two teenage daughters July and September leave Oxford and arrive at a cottage in Yorkshire. The place is “rankled, bentoutashape, dirtyallover”. It’s creepy and unwelcoming (literally so… they cannot find the key supposedly hidden beneath a stone frog and the girls have to jump in through a window). Throughout the novel the house heaves and sighs as if alive, as if its walls and ceilings were pressing upon its new inhabitants. The house also has a habit of hijacking the thoughts of the characters. In one of the novel’s many surreal moments, July sees a bird force itself out of one of the house’s walls. Sheela, the mother, finds parallels between herself and the cottage:

She has always known that houses are bodies and that her body is a house in more ways than most. She had housed those beautiful daughters, hadn’t she, and she had housed depression all through her life like a smaller, weightier child… There are so many noises she cannot sleep. In the night, mostly, thumps and thundering, the sound of many footsteps, the crash of windows opening and closing, the crash of windows opening and closing, sudden explosions which sound like shouting… At times, awoken in the darkness, she things again about how that house is, more than any other, a body.

There are other horror tropes aplenty. For much of the novel, the first person narrator is July. It soon becomes clear that she has an unhealthily close relationship with her sister September, who is just ten months older than she is. They are inseparable in a manner which is at times touching and loving, but more often, than not, disturbing. The disorientating thought processes of July are challenging to follow, but suggest that she is in thrall to September, who has the stronger character of the two and a violent streak to go with it. We also realise that the family is blighted by mental health problems, violence and abuse. There are certain chapters of the novel which are presented in the third person from Sheela’s perspective. The narrative in these segments is clearer, and solves some of the many questions raised by July’s account. However, the mother’s explanations only serve to confirm the past episodes of rage and abuse which still cast a shadow over the family. The feeling of dread and terror is ever present. More importantly, the novel is underpinned by that niggling doubt which often characterises the best Gothic tales – is there any truth to the novel’s apparently supernatural or fantastical elements?

What is brilliant about Sisters is the way in which Johnson combines striking images and poetic language with horror and thriller elements to convey the ramblings of disturbed teenage minds. What is less impressive is the plot and the way it is handled. As the novel progresses, one cannot help suspecting that the author is holding back key details, in order to build up to a Night-Shyamalan-like twist and which does, eventually, arrive (that is why most reviews of the novel are peppered with *spoiler alerts*). Yet, the twist is underwhelming and not really worth the contrivances leading to the final revelation.

So, do read Sisters for the insightful characterizations, the great writing and for its original use of genre tropes. However, if its page-turning plots you're after, there are plenty of psychological thrillers that are probably better at providing thrills and chills.

3.5* ( )