A Tale of Two Sisters

by Anna Maxted

The bestselling author of Getting Over It and Running in Heels, a writer who "excels at creating winning characters and placing them in artfully crafted muddles" (Florida Sun-Sentinel) has created an unforgettable story of siblings in the best of times and the worst of times in London.

Lizbet and Cassie are sisters and, though they've always wanted different things, best friends as well. But that's about to change.

Cassie is skinny, clever, charismatic and successful - every not-so-perfect girl's worst nightmare. The one defect in her quality-controlled life may be her marriage.

Lizbet is plumper, plainer, dreamier. She's desperate to make her name as a journalist, but is stuck writing embarrassing articles on sex for a men's magazine. Her one achievement is her relationship with Tim, who thinks she's amusing and smart even when she asks ditzy questions.

Confronted by challenges that they never asked for, enticed by new loves, and forced apart by mistakes not their own, will Cassie and Lizbet ever figure out how to get back to the simple goodness of their sisterhood, even as their lives take them on a collision course of heartache and new beginnings?

Genres: Chick Lit, Fiction, Contemporary, Family, Literary Fiction, Novels, British Literature

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Anna Maxted is a bestselling author based in North London, England. Born in 1969, she is married to fellow author and journalist Philip Robinson and they have three young sons. She writes female contemporary fiction which is viewed to be at the high end of the chick lit market. Anna Maxted read English Literature at Girton College, Cambridge, before becoming a journalist. She is former Assistant Editor of Cosmopolitan, and has freelanced for most national newspapers and magazines, including The Independent on Sunday, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, The Times, Daily Express, FHM, Esquire and Living Etc.
...
As well as being rich in humour, Anna's novels invariably deal with some of the deeper and more complicated issues facing women, such as grief, abandonment, rejection, motherhood, and sibling rivalry.

Her first novel Getting Over It, was semi-autobiographical and based very much around her experience of the death of her own father.


(wikipedia)

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this up from the B&N clearance table to read on an Amtrak trip. I'm on page 122 and I really have no intention of finishing it. The main characters are too inconsistent for me. They just aren't that cohesive. They don't make sense. Also, the switch between narrators every few chapters doesn't really flow. I don't think the author handles it very well.

There is one sentence that stood out to me because it describes exactly how I sometimes feel lately:
But some days I have to force myself to stand upright instead of cringing, heaving my heavy self around like a human question mark . . .

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cassie is slender, clever, charismatic, successful. The one flaw in her perfect life may be her marriage. Her sister Lizbet is plumper, plainer, dreamier. An aspiring journalist, she's stuck writing embarrassing articles on sex for Ladz Mag. Her one achievement is her relationship with Tim, who thinks she's amusing and smart. Despite Cassie being the favored child, she and Lizbet have always been best friends. But then Lizbet gets pregnant.

Forced apart by mistakes not their own, enticed by new loves, and confronted by challenges they never asked for, Cassie and Lizbet struggle to rediscover the simple goodness of their sisterhood, even as their lives take them on a collision course of heartache and new beginnings.

I really liked this book as well. In fact, of all the chick lit books I've read this month, this was probably my favorite one. The complicated relationship Cassie and Lizbet share, the secrets they keep from one another and between themselves, the supporting characters, it all added up to one great story. I cheered for each of them as they get their lives together and as their relationship ebbs and flows like that of a normal sisterly relationship (or at least normal as similar to the relationship I have with my sister). The book was sweet, and happily there was a bit of an epilogue, which I'm coming to enjoy more and more with each of these books I read. I always want to know how things turn out, and I was more than satisfied with the rest of Cassie and Lizbet's lives. Fun book, great story, a little more intense than Undomesticated Goddess or Nearlyweds, but it was worth the extra effort!

[Hannah Polley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up with two sisters, I always enjoy books about a sisterly relationship. And the tag line on the front of the book 'they were the best of friends, they were the worst of friends' sums it up perfectly.

This book is about two sisters, Cassie and Lizbet. Lizbet gets pregnant accidentally and can't wait to tell her sister. However, Cassie reacts badly and refuses to discuss Lizbet's baby. Lizbet doesn't know that Cassie has been trying for a baby for over a year. Lizbet tragically loses her baby and then Cassie feels guilty but the damage has already been done to their relationship. When Cassie then gets pregnant, their relationship deteriorates further.

I cried a lot reading this book which was awkward because I read it on a train and also during my lunch break at work.

It has a predictably happy ending but it is a good, quick read.

[Sherri Bryant]

Normally, I enjoy Anna Maxted's books, but this one did not grab my interest. I wasn't able to stick with it, anticipating that it would draw me in at a later point.

[Katherine Marple · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree that A Tale of Two Sisters is not the normal Maxted style. It lacks the flair and outwardly hilarious moments that her others did. However, this is not an entirely bad thing.

Maxted creates characters that I love. Cassie is younger, prettier, more career-oriented, and "harder" in that she doesn't show her emotions. Lizbet is older, average looking, but really happy no matter what her situation is, care-free and very emotional. They are almost nearly completely opposites- which is normal in many sister relationships.

While reading, you watch Cassie soften and discover herself through relationship turmoil, and learning to be supportive of her family members regardless of her opionion on their decisions. We also watch Lizbet lose herself after an awful event that tears her apart. We watch both girls totally change their personalitlies in order to help the other sister through her life- which is very similar to what real sisters do. We alter and change ourselves to help when we can, without completely losing the "gut" of our being.

The reason this is a three instead of a four or five star book is because the book was a bit... slow. There were a lot of events that happened, yes, but there was also a lot of self-inflection that came off as whiny sometimes. Maybe that was Maxted's intent? To make the reader see what Lizbet and/or Cassie was doing wrong so that we don't do it ourselves? Regardless, it was a bit annoying to read those parts.

I also had a hard time switching back and forth between Lizbet and Cassie's stories. The chapters weren't evenly broken up and at times it was hard to re-register my brain to follow that it was "Cassie" speaking now, or "Lizbet" speaking now. I almost wished it was told in third person all together, so that the separation of the two stories wouldn't be necessary.

A Tale of Two Sistes was a very good read. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. It wasn't as funny as Maxted's other books, but there was a certain seriousness that carried through the book that actually gave it more depth. I enjoyed it.

[Laurel-Rain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two sisters, Lizbet and Cassie, alternately tell this story using the first person narrative voice. As I slowly came to know them and their backstory, I found A Tale of Two Sisters captivating enough to continue.

However, at times, I would lose my way, as the story wended its way back and forth; occasionally, I had difficulty identifying who the narrator was at any given point. Sometimes chapters would identify the name of the narrator.

Despite those issues, however, I did come to enjoy the ups and downs of the sisters and their relationships with each other and with the men in their lives. The men were fairly loathsome, in my opinion, especially Cassie's husband. I did like the fact that he got his comeuppance at one point, and then started to improve his behavior.

A long untold secret about Cassie is divulged (to Cassie and the reader) fairly early, but Lizbet is in the dark for most of the book.

For the rest, go to: http://curlupandread.wordpress.com/20...

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Women who haven't always gotten along with their sisters will probably relate to this. My sister and I hated each other for the first seventeen years or so, Finally my grandma's prediction came true and she became my best friend and the maid of honor at my wedding.

To be honest with you, I read this about a year ago and don't remember much other then feeling one or both of them were being very insensitive to the other. I do remember enjoying it, though.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this is chick lit, I always enjoy the way Anna Maxted weaves serious topics through her book. This book covers miscarriage, fertility issues and sibling differences. Miscarriage is so rarely mentioned in books I thought it was dealt with very well here and I was happy that it was not glossed over. However, the ending did feel a bit rushes and I'm not entirely sure if it should have had the ending it had.

[Catherine Jarvis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I must say I was hoping for a humourous chick lit and instead all I got was the usual candy floss chick lit that I loathe. It wasn't funny, even when it was meant to be. The characters were so stereotyped and one dimensional. The one sisters emotional 'breakdown' made her even more one dimensional. The writer obviously tried to make it psychological and complex but failed miserably. I was expecting better.

[Erin Black-Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I somehow read about 5 books in a row that dealt with pregnancy with out realizing. Maybe I should read what the books are about before I read them. There were moments in this book that I could truly relate to when one of the sisters was going through her pregnancy. The entire focus of the book isn't on pregnancy though, but the relationship between two sisters which I could also relate too.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anna Maxted writes what would be classified as (Brit) chick lit, but her books always have a darker/deeper element than that genre would imply. This book, told from two perspectives (the "two sisters" of the title) deals with family dramas large and small, pregnancy, loss of children, and romantic relationship issues in a way that keeps you reading.

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anyone with a sister, or even a life-long best friend, will be absorbed by these characters. There are a couple of inconsistancies (where was the editor?), but they were minute and did not influence the overall power of this story of life, loss, and love.

[Sandra van Dam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dit is het vierde boek dat ik heb gelezen van Anna Maxted en dit is veruit de beste!

[Hjwoodward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heh heh most of my friends won't like this fluffy book, but, because it deals with the relationship between two sisters, and has lots of messy family stuff in between, I enjoyed it. The older sister, Lisbet, falls pregnant unexpectedly (she didn't really want children - has a cat) but when she has a miscarriage at four months six days, she is devastated. I liked the way Maxted went on about what a wreck she was and how long and how badly she suffered, because it highlights an aspect of baby loss that most of us don't think about much (except if a person close to you has this happen to them). I particularly liked the way it affects her relationships with everyone, especially when her sister is kind to her (*spoiler alert* she HATES her for her caring attitude, partly because it contrasts with her original cold response to Lisbet's pregnancy in the first place and partly because she is so tormented in any case). I don't think any child-free people should read this book, but as I say, I liked it a lot.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had literally had this book on my bookshelf for a decade, unread. I was out of other books, so I decided to try this one. I thought it might be fun, but was a bit of a hard read. I didn't really like any of the characters and found it hard to get to know them. Paragraphs seemed to go off on a tangent and sometimes just skipped some of them. It wasn't terrible. It was alright enough to finish reading so I could see if everything worked out in the end, but I wanted to get it over and done with to get on to a new book.

[Terese · Rating 3 out of 5]

Det är den av Maxteds böcker som har varit bäst.

Som vanligt lyckas författaren skapa karaktärer som är väldigt irriterande och osympatiska men jag tyckte att de blev bättre mot slutet av boken.

Lizbet kändes väldigt barnslig och nonchalant och Cassie kändes väldigt känslokall och egoistisk. Men de blev bättre och trevligare mot slutet av boken.

[Barbara Shaver · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t like the girls complaining all the time. I do realize this is part of the novel but it wasn’t pleasing to me. I felt like I had to read all the time just to finish it.
Cassie is adopted and finds her birth mother who has died. She divorces her husband and and finds Barnaby, a fellow lawyer
Lizbet gets back with Tim in the end
Everyone has babies

[Zarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

You probably have to have kids, or want them, to appreciate this book fully. I don't so that part was unintetesting'ish. I didn't really like the characters either. It's an okay read but not as good as I expected from Anna Maxted.

[Emmalene Umar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, some heavy topics, but insightful and ultimately uplifting. Rich, characters. I loved the way the author abbreviated prose by listing with commas. I thoroughly enjoyed reading and definitely recommend it!

[Phyllis Barlow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was going to rate this two stars because I really didn't like any of the people involved until I got about three fourths of the way through. At that point things got more interesting and more warm. I would read another book by this author.

[Mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was nothing like I expected at all. I bought it wanting to work on my relationship with my sister however it is a little different situation. I think it was interesting and entertaining but a big book and yeah as I said the storyline was not what I expected.

[Mark Gorman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fairly boring book.

[Maureen Neylon · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5. Good vacation read. I’m often drawn to stories about sisters, their similarities and differences. The adoption twist thrown in there was an interesting angle. Easy beach read.

[Stacy culler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Annoyingly British. Some very funny parts

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Marked as finished where in reality I reached page 50 and DNF. Just could not get it at all. Gave up. Too many other books to read.

[Mary Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boring. Did not hold my attention. Giving it 3 stars only because I found the characters relatable.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

For some reason, I have been picking up a lot of books on families lately. And all have been okay.

This is about two sisters who are very close (I liked this aspect a lot). Older, more carefree is married and finds out she is pregnant. She originally didn't want kids, but changes her mind. She ends up having a miscarriage and it really effects her. Younger is the more serious sister, married as well. When she was 13 her parents tell her she was adopted and let her chose if she wants to tell Older. She chooses not too. When Older finds out she is pregnant, Younger is really pissed off because she has always wanted a baby. She is not too sad when Older miscarries and does feel bad about not caring. Younger finally does become pregnant and at the same time realizes she does not love her husband anymore and they separate. Older has some falling out with her husband over lack of a baby and her job, but doesn't care too much about the job.

Stuff happens that was entertaining but I can't remember anymore. I liked the amount of characters in this book because it all had to do mostly with family. It seemed like a lot, but when you pictured it all laid out, it totally made sense. And I did like the the in-laws where kind of all close with each other, even the parents of both husbands even though they were not related at all. Oh, and the parents spill the beans that Younger is adopted to Older. Not much comes from that, but Younger's real family does contact her, which is kind of nice.

Grade: C

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anna Maxted writes chick lit with a little more weight than is standard--her previous books have dealt with the death of a parent, date rape, and eating disorders. This one is no different, although it is a little harder to sum up the major "issue" of the book--or rather, maybe, there are more than one.

Instead of one heroine we get two: Lizbet, fairly standard chick-lit heroine in the Bridget Jones mold, who is dealing with a miscarriage, and the fact that her parents always favored her perfect younger sister, Cassie. Cassie, however, has her own issues. I don't want to give too much away but the bulk of the book has to do with issues of family--the definition of family and what it means to be a mother, daughter and sister.

Having a close sister, I could relate to a lot of the interaction between Cassie and Lizbet (although we are both decidedly Bridget-Jonesian. Thoughtfully, we have both spared the other from having to live up to perfection).



I will say, though, that I didn't find this book as engrossing as some of Maxted's earlier books. She usually writes a male character that I really like a lot. (Particularly the cute vet in Getting Over It. Sadly, no vet I have ever gone to has ever been cute--sorry, Dr. Bowerman.) Here, with the focus mainly on the relationship between the sisters, maybe there wasn't room for a more fleshed-out boyfriend/husband/romantic interest character.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book after reading a Washington Post review. Since I agree with the Post review, I'm pasting a link for it here: http://www.powells.com/biblio/0525949739
I would add that Maxted has a tendency to use adjectives instead of adverbs, but I got over that annoyance, since compelling and interesting characters are generally what make a book for me. However, Cassie, the adopted sister, was less believable to me than Lizbet, the sister who had a miscarriage. In fact, I found Lizbet's reaction to her miscarriage so believable that I wondered if Maxted had personal experience with miscarriage, but not with adoption.

I hesitate to make this comparison, but I enjoyed the book the way I would enjoy a Jane Austen (I guess that's why some describe it as chick lit), with the humor, the way the plot is wrapped up at the end, and one or two male characters you can have a little crush on. However, Maxted's writing style and plot would definitely not merit more than 3 stars compared to Austen's 5.

[Chrissy · Rating 4 out of 5]

How easy it would have been for Anna Maxted to have created two sisters that were stereotypical opposites. While one sister in this novel is a high-achieving career girl and the other is a more free-spirited journalist, I found the characters to be nicely three-dimensional, even the men (who are normally pretty flat in chick lit). The relationship between the sisters is complicated and becomes increasingly so during the progression of the novel, but is very believable. Anna Maxted tends to deal with heavier subjet matter than most chick lit authors, incorporating themes like death of a parent or date rape. This novel deals with miscarriage and unexpected pregnancy, and handles it in a very delicate way. Unlike most books about sisters, there is no "good sister" or "bad sister" here, which is the way it normally happens in real life.