An interesting Gothic tale. The Stone family have for generations been fascinated by moths, and Ginny is the last of the Stone lepidopterists, living as a recluse in the crumbling family home. The story starts as her younger sister, Vivi, returns home following nearly fifty years of exile. Ginny tries to understanding her conflicting emotions surrounding Vivii's by trying to recall and understand their dysfunctional past - just why everyone though she was 'special', apart from being a famed lepidopterist that is - and why Vivi left. But can you believe everything Ginny says? This is a good, thought provoking read about the unspoken secrets every family shares. ( )

I must admit, I was disappointed in The Sister. I heard it compared to The Thirteenth Tale, which is my favorite book. On one hand, I see the comparison: estranged sisters, reunited, family feuds, etc. On the other hand, there is no real comparison for me. It isn't quite eerie enough, it isn't sentimental enough...overall, it just isn't enough. ( )

I thought this book worked perfectly both as the story of two sisters and their family as well as an interesting insight to the behaviour of moths! ( )

I was drawn to this book, which surprised me as the subject matter did not sound that interesting......I found the book quite hypnotic and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it is very understated, and I loved the detail, observations and the writing style. ( )

This is a ZERO-star book!!! It was torture to read through, which was a monumental disappointment because I was really looking forward to reading this one. It was Boring with a capital b. I would never recommend this book to anyone. The only thing I liked about it was the cover artwork. ( )

Poppy Adams' The Sister is a strange but satisfying book. The original British title, The Behaviour of Moths, is a much more pertinent title but I guess it's too stuffy for American readers so we get the vague title instead. Ginny is a seventy year old woman who is still in the house she grew up in, the house where she and her father worked together as lepidopterists -- moth specialists. Her younger sister Vivi is returning to the house after 50 years and Ginny is not sure how she feels about it. Over the course of a five day narration, Ginny tells us not only about her current feelings but all about their family history and the things she has experienced in her life.

The book has many twists as Ginny reveals things about past and present that we would not have guessed from her narration. We learn fairly early that Ginny is not a "normal" person -- detached, unemotional and a bit odd. It is this that makes you wonder if you can take her storytelling at face value or if we are hearing everything through a skewed perspective. This is a very interesting read from a non-standard point of view.

http://webereading.com/2008/11/its-te... ( )

I give "The Sister" by Poppy Adams 3 Stars. It had a slow start that almost made me want to put it down but I kept reading and got pulled in by the story. It not only showed the dynamics of family life, the relationship of sisters but also how things may or may not change after years of separation. I thought some of it was a little too technical to read for enjoyment, unless you're interested in Moths but over all, a good read.

This is a book that I was really excited about and had great hopes for but ultimately I was disappointed. Part of me wonders if this was because I missed something along the way or the "unreliable" narrator misled me. It could also have been that I read this book on vacation and kept picking it up and putting it down and may have lost my train of thought. Ultimately, I was confused about what actually happened in the book, which left me dissatisfied. The story is narrated by Ginny, who lives alone in the huge, crumbling family mansion. She is waiting for her little sister Vivi to return home after years away. The book alternates between Ginny's present day and the childhood that she and Vivi shared -- a childhood that was a bit unorthodox to say the least. The book covers the reunion of the sisters and fills you in on the circumstances that kept them apart for more than 50 years. As I said, with Ginny as the narrator, you are privy only to her thoughts and feelings, which eventually led me to become mistrustful of what she said. Although I understood what happens at the end, I became confused about what happened in the middle. I felt that this book had a lot of potential but ultimately it didn't satisfy me. If you are a fan of gothic mysteries, this might be a good fit for you. But be warned, the book includes a lot of information about moths -- probably more than you really want to know. ( )

Short-listed for the 2008 Costa Award (formerly Whitbread Award), it brings to mind the first sentence of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina - "All happy families are like one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". In the 21st century we might say that each dysfunctional family is dysfunctional in its own way, for the Stone family is truely dysfunctional.

At first I felt that Ginny, the narrator, was just a little eccentric, but that proves to be an understatement. I was a little disappointed that we did not get to hear much of Vivi's side of the story. But it was a captivating read. I'm looking forward to more by this author.

The original title of this book was "The Behaviour of Moths", and was changed for the U.S. market. I think I learned a little more about moths than I really wanted to know. ( )

This is the story of two elderly sister reunited after an absence of fifty years. One of the sisters Ginny is the narrator. The book takes place over only a few days but through Ginny, and her memories, and her conversations with her sister we are able to piece together a lot of what has happened over the last fifty years. Viv left home at a young age and has hardly been back. Ginny, who became a famous lepidoperist like her father, still lives in the same house but over time she has become more and more reclusive barley venturing out. Her life has become more and more controlled by routine to the point of obsessiveness, so she finds it very difficult when Viv decides to return home to live with her sister. She feels suspicious of her sister's motives for returning. As the sisters come together we learn about their childhood and their past, and the sudden mysterious death of their mother, following her decline into alcoholism. We soon realise that the sisters see the events of their lives in very different ways and that Ginny cannot necessarily be trusted to tell the truth. The book comes to a somewhat shocking conclusion which still left me with some frustration as i did not get answers to all my questions. The other down side for me was all the information about moths which some may have found interesting but I skipped over mostly. It seemed to me to disrupt the flow of the book at times. However I still felt it was worth the read. ( )

Virginia Stone, a 70 year old spinster, lives alone with her moths at Bulburrow Court, her family’s mansion. She is an eccentric old woman who grew up during WWII and its aftermath. She is peculiar, most especially about time and tea. To say she is set in her ways would be an understatement. When her younger sister Vivien returns to Bulburrow Court after leaving the family home and her sister for London nearly 50 years earlier, Ginny reflects on her life, from her alcoholic mother Maud, her lepidopterist father Clive, who mentored her in the study of moths, and her love for her absent sister. She approaches her history with the same unemotional scientific eye that she uses with her moths and other insects. It doesn’t take long to start questioning Ginny’s reliability as a daughter, sister, and narrator. This novel held my interest from the beginning with Vivi’s tragic, near-fatal fall and the numerous mysteries and questions that continued to come up to the surface.

Poppy Adams is an extremely detailed writer. Her use of entomology and the study of the moth clearly stem from a great deal of research. While Ginny loves to go into lengthy and often gory detail about her science, the minutia she shares with the reader provides important insights into Ginny’s morality, mental state, and obsessive compulsiveness. There is an interesting passage about a colony of ants taken over by a butterfly larva that still has me thinking about Ginny and what the truth about her family might have been.

This is the first audio book I truly enjoyed. No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July and Savannah by John Jakes (which I couldn’t finish) were complete flops for me - both because of the narration. In addition to the story itself, The Sister had what the others so far have not - the perfect reader. Juliet Mills’ voice and reading was such a complement to Ginny that I can’t image there being a more perfect vocal performer for the novel. The way she enunciated “pupal soup” throughout the novel was both sickening and dead on for Ginny’s character. She expertly read dialog for the other characters as well. There was a scene where Maud, drunk, could not hold her tongue to Ginny about her opinions of Albert, Vivi’s boyfriend. That exchange between Maud and Ginny was wonderful and riveting. Although I’m tempted to read the physical book the next time around, I can’t imagine reading it without hearing Mills’ voice.

This novel, because it is narrated by Ginny, does not provide answers to all of the questions that are raised. Who exactly is the sister? What exactly did the rest of the family and the village of Bulburrow know about Ginny that she did not? If she has been mentally ill her entire life, why in the world would Vivi and Albert entrust her with their family in the way that they did? Did she truly carry on Clive’s work after he retired? What exactly went on with Dr. Moyse? At first, this made the ending fall a little flat for me. However, upon further reflection, it would be impossible to know what Ginny did not and this is made even that much more difficult as she had a talent for blocking out the unpleasant portions of stories and conversations. Truly, this novel is open-ended, allowing the reader to discern the truth from the delusion. The Sister invites additional readings. It would be very interesting to read this a second time to see what I might have missed the first time. While under no circumstances would I ever sit down for tea with Ginny Stone, I’d love to study her in more depth. She is a fascinating character whose voice, like that of Vida Winter from The Thirteenth Tale and many of Patrick McGrath’s narrators, will stay with me for a long time to come.

http://literatehousewife.wordpress.co... ( )

Here are a few common literary themes I’m a sucker for: family secrets, faulty memory, different perspectives on single events, isolated eccentrics, and possibly unreliable narrators. And Poppy Adams’s The Sister, originally published in the UK with the title The Behaviour of Moths, includes all of these themes. Ginny, the narrator, has lived alone for years in a secluded mansion, working on her moth research. Now in her 70s, she has her habits and routines and seems comfortable with her life until her younger, more wordly sister Vivian shows up.

The sometimes lengthy descriptions of moth behavior will either fascinate readers, or completely turn them off. I found them generally fascinating, if a little overdone at times, particularly toward the end.

I hesitate to say anything more about this book because it’s one of those books that rewards fresh reading. I will say that Adams plays fair; she lays the groundwork for everything we learn at the end.

As the book ends, we are left with more as many questions as answers. We still don’t know whose perspective is accurate, and we don’t really have the full story about Ginny herself. I love this kind of ambiguity, but I imagine not everyone would. If you do, and especially if you like Barbara Vine, I recommend The Sister.

See my complete review at my blog. ( )

Poppy Adams, a documentary filmmaker, has ventured into the realm of fiction with her debut story of reconnection between two estranged sisters. Told in first person, The Sister opens with 70-year-old Ginny waiting for her younger sister, Vivi, to return home after nearly fifty years. Through tension and memories Ginny describes the sister’s youth and her own obsession with ordering the small world around her. Ginny has remained at their birth home and inherited her father’s love of all things dealing with moths (that’s right folks, moths…like butterflies). Vivi has ventured out into the world and even uses a cell phone and knows how to make pizza!

But under the surface of this homecoming lie secrets and a feeling of impending ruin. It isn’t long before the reader begins to realize Ginny’s unreliability as a narrator. Something’s just not right. She’s preoccupied with detail, time and order. We begin to ask ourselves which sister to like, because taking sides seems to be a theme in their family. In the end, there are no easy answers and many questions are left out to dry.

The premise of this book is an interesting one: an examination of the mind’s ability to misrepresent its own reality and the degrees of which our impulses over-ride free will. Yet, the telling gets so bogged down in scientific description (in an attempt at comparisons) it loses momentum. Ms. Adams overlooks that many readers want to be entertained by books. Yes, we like to learn. Yes, we like a good mystery twist, but we’re discerning when it comes to contrivance to fit a theme. And contrivance is a good word for this novel. It’s a heavy-handed attempt at building mystery. There’s too much description to keep the nuance going. Just as I’d get a good feel for the atmosphere in the home, some long scientific allusion would break the flow.

In the end, the wiz-bang came off as just a pop. I didn’t care which sister was the more reliable or less faulted or even whose version was correct. I’d long given up on Ginny and imagined far worse from her than the tale’s end.

Review first published on Many A Quaint & Curious Volume
© Tasses 2007-2009 ( )

http://books.moonsoar.com/archives/20... ( )

http://2manybooks2read.blogspot.com/2... ( )

Reunited after a forty-year estrangement, Ginny, a solitary lepidopterist living in the crumbling family home in rural Britain, and Vivien, who had fled her family's eccentricities for the normalcy of London, struggle to come to terms with their stormy past and a web of hidden family secrets. ('08) ( )

I found this book to be rather slow, and dissatisfying at the end. I read somewhere that it was similar to The Thirteenth Tale and must heartily disagree. I didn't find the characters engaging and the plot sagged, although I thought it had real potential. ( )

Told from the first-person perspective of Ginny, now well into her seventies, twisted with painful arthritis and rattling around the decrepit family mansion, Poppy Adams’ debut novel puts a gothic spin on family secrets, mental health and person perspective. We meet Ginny on the day her younger sister, Vivi, has returned to the family home after nearly fifty years. In stark contrast to the reclusive and compulsive Ginny, Vivi breezes in with a tiny dog under her arm and a big city life in her background. As Ginny begins to recall the family history we learn of the father, Clive’s, obsession with Lepidoptera, of the mother, Maude’s alcoholism, and the unusual relationship between Vivi’s husband, Arthur and Ginny. Although Ginny’s remembrances are detailed and clear, and her scientific understanding of lepidoptery is encyclopedic, there are also hints that she might be just slightly off-kilter. As Vivi’s blithe assertions begin to impede on Ginny’s carefully constructed world the reader begins to sense that all is not as ordered and as easily catalogued as the attic full of winged insect. ( )

I enjoyed Poppy Adams's debut novel a great deal. Shortly after meeting the narrator, Ginny, we share her questions, "Why is her sister Vivi coming home now after a nearly 5 decade absence? What does she want?" Soon we discover that something seems off with Ginny. Her viewpoint is skewed in a way that is hard to put a finger on but is nevertheless quite obviously erratic.

The story takes place over a few days after Vivi's return, but also jumps back in time to paint a portrait of a very odd family who by turns seem eccentric and crazy. The setting of a mostly closed off crumbling gothic mansion with no furniture adds to the creepy feeling.

There is a fair amount of detailed focus on Ginny and her father's study of moths. Some readers complain about that emphasis, but I found it added to the story generally. There was a time or two towards the end where I felt that the detail interrupted the narrative flow, but I also felt that having flow interrupted by a focus on moths was true for Ginny as well.

We never hear another voice besides Ginny's which makes this all the more enoyable because the ground is always shifting a little underfoot as we strain to understand what is true and what is off due to the weird filter of Ginny's voice. Given Adams's strict adherence to never showing us a viewpoint other than Ginny's, I feel okay about there being many unanswered questions at the end of this book.

In some ways, this book is hard to review without giving away details that should be left for the reader to discover in the story itself. Let me just say, I sped through it in my eagerness to figure it out.

Review pertains to Advance Reader's Edition. ( )

Entertaining, ending a bit weak, classic british ( )

Quick, quick read. Disturbing first novel that made me feel just fine for having one child. Also a novel to make you wonder just how much you lie to yourself and how much others are lying to you. Did my parents tell me I was special and I fell for it, hook, line and sinker?! Do my friends tell me I'm a dead ringer for Halle Barry and I fall for it? Idiot!! Obviously, this novel goes deeper than this, but I did find myself identifying with the narrator a little bit and being highly disturbed by this. (Although, see Real World, below for a more disturbing book that parts of me, sickly, related to)

The Sister did remind me a lot of A.S. Byatt's Angel's and Insects (talk about disturbing) and, having read recently Jane Smiley's Prodigal Summer,- I was fascinated by the basic study of moths. Moths have always creeped me out a bit (some of them don't even have mouths! Mouths Liz Lemon!!).

I'd recommend it - although I kept feeling like I'd read it before while I was reading it, don't know if that makes it derivative, but it sure feels like that!

http://obsessivebooklover.blogspot.co... ( )

When I read reviewsd that evoked The Thirteenth Tale and Whatever Happenend to Baby Jane, I knew I had to read this book. Ginny, an elderly English lady lives as a complete recluse in a moldering country mansion. Her sister Vivien arrives at her doorstep after almost a 50-year absence, and turns Ginny's carefully constructed existence upside down. It's an easy read, and very entertaining if you're a sucker for all those gothic trappings, as I am. Ginny and her father were llepidopterists, and some people may find the extensive details on moths to be a bit much, but I enjoyed it. My only criticism is that the ending doesn't live up to the rest of the book. Not that it's a bad or unsatisfying ending, but with everything that went before, I expected something that would pack more of a wallop. ( )

This was an excellent debut. I liked the Gothic suspense and knew early on that the truth being told by the narrator was her version and clearly she was a bit off. It's the sort of book each reader may interpret differently since many questions went unanswered. Some readers may find this frustrating rather than intriguing as I did. ( )

This is a hauntingly sinister read....totally engrossing. Almost every turn is unexpected but completely believable. ( )

The novel opens with Ginny Stone awaiting the arrival of her sister Vivi, who she has not seen in over forty years. Ginny still lives in the family mansion in a small English village, but it has seen better days. It is crumbling around her and she has confined herself to four or five rooms. She has no television, no phone, no radio and no visitors. She never leaves the house. Provisions are brought by the son of one of the old caretakers every couple of weeks. She is obsessed with time.

" When you live by yourself in a house that you very rarely leave and is even more rarely visited, it's essential that you don't lose track of the time. Every minute lost- if left uncorrected - would soon accumulate to an hour, and then hours, until - as you can imagine - you could easily end up living in a completely erroneous time frame"

"What I fear is timelessness, a lack of structure in my life, an endless Now."

Ginny followed in her family's footsteps, becoming a renowned lepidopterist, a scientist who studies butterflies or moths.

Vivi on the other hand, yearned to escape what she saw as a limited and suffocating environment. Although Ginny is the older sister, Vivi was always the leader, the dreamer and the adventurer. The girls spent all their time together and seemed inseparable. Vivi seemed to take after their mother Maud - who loved company and entertaining. Ginny took after their father Clive - who was happiest when not with people.

Vivi does escape to London, where she makes a life for herself.

When Vivi arrives, the reunion is awkward. Their memories of childhood and their parents seem worlds apart.

The story is told from Ginny's viewpoint. We are tantalized by snippets from the past and then back to the present.

Adams has certainly done her research on the world of moths and butterflies. I must admit that I started skipping passages that detailed this. On the other hand, this detail just adds to drawing the characters of Clive and Ginny as this is their world.

Ginny's character is well developed. I was able to connect with her loneliness and confusion. The progression of her will as secrets, incidents and anger are exposed is very believable. Although we are left wanting to know more of Vivi's life away, this lack of knowledge is exactly what Ginny has. We can empathize with her confusion and unravelling.

This novel has a distinct Gothic feel about it. A delicious British tale of dysfunctional family relationships and the havoc they can wreak. ( )