Sisters
by Daisy Johnson
Born just ten months apart, July and September are thick as thieves, never needing anyone but each other. Now, following a case of school bullying, the teens have moved away with their single mother to a long-abandoned family home near the shore. In their new, isolated life, July finds that the deep bond she has always shared with September is shifting in ways she cannot entirely understand. A creeping sense of dread and unease descends inside the house. Meanwhile, outside, the sisters push boundaries of behavior—until a series of shocking encounters tests the limits of their shared experience, and forces shocking revelations about the girls’ past and future. Written with radically inventive language and imagery by an author whose work has been described as “entrancing” (The New Yorker), “a force of nature” (The New York Times Book Review), and “weird and wild and wonderfully unsettling” (Celeste Ng), Sisters is a one-two punch of wild fury and heartache—a taut, powerful, and deeply moving account of sibling love and what happens when two sisters must face each other’s darkest impulses.
Sisters by Daisy Johnson was one of my 5 Can’t Miss Late Summer Book Releases and is a novel I already had mixed feelings about before even reading it. I was intrigued by the synopsis, but weary of the description of Johnson’s writing that described it as, “radically inventive language.” However, my weariness wasn’t enough to combat the intrigue, and Sisters quickly became a book I was very much looking forward to reading.
I went into Sisters with an open mind, though I did feel prepared for a reading experience that would simply not be to my taste. While I’m open to new, offbeat writing styles, I have no interest in try-hard, abrasive writing that’s only lauded by literary highbrows who seem to enjoy radical writing not for any actual merit but simply because it dares to be something radical. Though I can have an appreciation for such unique styles, I also just want to enjoy a reading experience. Johnson’s writing wasn’t as “radically inventive” as I had expected, which was something of a relief. The first few pages felt a bit off, but I was able to settle into the style well enough and even enjoyed it. It was a very specific style, every word feeling intentional in the way it affected the narrative and tone. Though Johnson uses stylistic choices that I’m usually not a fan of—ex: the listing of descriptions, items, etc. and no quotation marks for dialogue—it just worked with Sisters. Everything felt melded together, fluid and unclear in a way that mirrored the plot. The descriptions, imagery, and analogies within Sisters were fantastic. Johnson’s writing is evocative and, oftentimes, unsettling. The language used in Sisters was almost hypnotic—it felt as if I was being pulled under, lost in the eddies of an unreliable narrator’s mind. The imagery is often strange, but certainly effective. The entire novel had such atmosphere. It was unsettling, strange, confusing, uncomfortable. I’m truly surprised by how much this writing style mirrored and enriched the plot, but I’m more surprised that I enjoyed it.
Sisters was somehow both the story I’d expected and one I couldn’t have seen coming at all. It had all the strangeness between the sisters, July and September, that I had expected, though that didn’t soften the impact and it was not only in the ways I’d expected. The synopsis’s use of the phrase “thick as thieves” almost juvenilizes their relationship and brings to mind a different—certainly more lighthearted—sort of sisterhood. But July and September are anything but lighthearted, and their relationship was darker in ways that, frankly, made me uncomfortable. Layers of their codependence are revealed as the story unfolds, showing readers impactful moments throughout the years and the ways in which they grew to be as they are. It all feels very fluid, with July’s narration dipping from one memory to the present without much separation. But still, I couldn’t help feel like there was so much I didn’t know and wasn’t seeing the full picture of. I felt trapped by July’s narration—I wanted to push beyond the limits of her foggy, dependent-on-September mind and figure out just what was going on. I liked that there was a feeling of disconnect between the girls and some parts of their lives. Despite being teenagers, their isolation and July’s reliance on her sister created a sense of them being younger. It was often jarring to read about them doing normal teenage things or even going to high school. They seemed to exist almost solely by themselves, and any glimpse at them being somewhat normal felt like it didn’t quite match up with who we’d come to know them as. It felt strange to think they could be as they were and still go to regular high school. The sense of isolation I’d become familiar with was starkly juxtaposed by these scenes and it almost made their relationship seem more twisted, as if looking at it in the light, and shifted my perspective of them. I love that Johnson keeps you thinking about the sisters in certain ways, then shoves them into a situation you wouldn’t have guessed they could be in–something social and very, very typically teenager.
I never felt like I could fully grasp exactly what this novel was doing and, by the end, I still hadn’t. There was a sense of isolation about the whole thing; the sisters being in the Settle House, the readers being stuck in July’s mind for most of the story. Certain happenings made me wonder exactly what type of story I was reading. There were moments when I thought it could be categorized a certain way, but then something small would happen and shift my whole perspective. Mostly, I was left slightly confused and wondering. I think this whole story unfolds so well. I loved that I felt so unsure and confused and that, even by the end, I couldn’t nail down exactly the type of story I had just read. Sisters blurs lines without defining more than was necessary the ways in which it just crossed a line into another territory, subtly shifting the lens that we’ve been viewing the whole book and making readers rethink everything. When a line is toed, you may think, “Okay, this is where it’s going,” but often, the novel doesn’t go beyond toeing the line…and therefore keeps you on your toes. It was fantastically compelling and compulsive reading.
My one critique of the plot was that a major plot twist was one that I guessed was coming and one that I don’t think is all that unique. It has great shock value and fit perfectly with the story, but I’ve read other books and seen movies that have done the same thing. However, I think the way Sisters builds upon this plot twist and brings readers to the end of the story is incredibly unique and made up for the fact that I saw it coming. I loved the ending.
Sisters was absolutely compelling, a twisted tale of sisterhood that delves into control, abuse, and confused wonder for readers. The writing was evocative and unsettling, luring the readers further into the dark and unexpected relationship between July and September. While the writing may not be to everyone’s taste (and I hadn’t expected it to be to mine), it certainly is effective. I highly recommend readers looking for a slightly offbeat, unsettling tale give Sisters a chance. You may be as surprised by it as I was.
4/5
Thanks for reading,
Madison