Sisters by Lily Tuck. Atlantic Monthly Press| September 2017| 156 pages | $20| ISBN: 978-0-8021-2711-2

RATING: ****/5*

In this well-crafted, potent novel, a woman shares her marital insecurities. The unnamed woman lives with her husband and his two children. Author Lily Tuck deftly brings us into this woman’s world and into her mind as she competes with her husband’s first wife. She questions everything about her relationship with her husband, from not having her own children [“The girl, slightly older, was hostile. Not having children of my own, I tried too hard to please them. I wanted them to like me– to love me–and I allowed them liberties that, in retrospect, I should not have.”] to not having the right career [“I have a career, but I am not a pianist or an artist. My career gives me some financial freedom, it gets me out of the house, but it is not all consuming. If I had to give it up tomorrow, it would not matter much. I am not passionate about my work.”] She explains that not having children even affected her relationship with her sister–“Eloise is a few years younger than I am and we have never been close. Less so once she got married and she had kids, reasons I suppose for her to act superior to me. I’ve met her kids. Her kids are surly and overweight.” She’s so obsessed with her husband’s first wife that she’s perplexed that he doesn’t seem to care about her past romances–“And despite my own reservations about speaking of it, I have to admit that his lack of curiosity about my love life was not flattering.”

–review by Amy Steele

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from Grove Atlantic.