Two Sisters By Mary Hogan

This book really took some time for me to get into. The Mother and the sister were such horrible people and the father and brother to me were not much better. They may have not been verbally abusive to Muriel, but to act if she isn't there is just as horrible. I couldn't imagine being treated the way Muriel was treated and being able to come out on the other end with such a decent personality. Yes she was an introvert and had some germaphobic issues but for the most part she was always still searching for that love from her mom and sister. I couldn't stop crying at the part when she talked to her sister in the funeral home. My heart just broke that she was asking for forgiveness for not being the sister that her sister wanted. For her to feel she need to ask for forgiveness just made me cry.
I also don't know if I could be as forgiving as she was at the end with her mom. It would have been hard for me to even let her in my house. I did like her comment of why she didn't hate her though.
Mama, hate gives you to much power and isn't that so true. I can say now finishing the book I would recommend it to my friends. I wasn't sure I was even going to like it, but I am pleasantly surprised. Also glad she went in the snow and had a chance to meet John and his dog Garrett. Mary Hogan A quick and predictable read - well, except for one big WTF moment about 3/4 of the way in, but otherwise it was a little too easy to see every single thing coming down the pike. And oddly, although the story is set in current day New York, two of the characters, who are about my age, come off as from another era - the 40's or 50's. Their dialogue is completely dated and utterly incorrect for two people who were in their 20's in the 1980's. I found that bizarre and distracting. Mary Hogan Two Tales revolves around the third and youngest child in the Sullivant family, Muriel. Muriel often felt unloved and overlooked by her mother and father due to their affections being focused on Muriel's older sister Pia and brother Logan. Muriel's mother and father Lidia and Owen seem at times to not even want Muriel around and she spends her life trying to get her parents and older sister to love her.

The author Mary Hogan, flashes back to the past focusing on Lidia and Owen's initial relationship to the present day focusing on Muriel's relationship with her sister Pia. We also get to some flashbacks to Muriel as a younger child with her sister and mother.

We do get to spend a little time from Pia's point of view which was nice and I thought haunting at times (I don't want to spoil potential readers) and it was good to see where her new found honesty came from and why she wanted so badly to reach out to Muriel.

The only quibbles I had with this book were that I wish that we had seen the story told from Lidia and Logan's points of view as well. I did end up liking Two Sisters but thought at times the story took too long to get to the ultimate conclusion in the end that I really didn't think worked based on what had came before it with all of the characters.
Please note I received this novel via the Amazon Vine Program. Mary Hogan Does the tale of the unwanted third child, Muriel Sullivant, begin on a cozy Sunday in her New York studio apartment, as she prepares to luxuriate in her favorite day of the week? She is grown by then, and enjoying the independence of the life she has chosen.

Or does it begin many years before, when her two parents, Owen and Lidia, met in Pawtucket, Rhode Island? That beginning would set the stage for a family of secrets and lies.

Muriel had always known that she was the unwanted child. Pia, her gorgeous sister, was the oldest and eight years her senior. Next came Logan, the son for her father. One child for Owen and one for Lidia. Then there was chubby Muriel, the outsider, who doesn't fit in. She can sense her mother's disapproval of her in every facial expression; her sister's feelings show when she treats her like a nuisance.

Two Sisters: A Novel is a sad and emotional tale of all the things that go wrong in a family when the two parents feel trapped and disappointed with the lives they're living. How does the third child survive the emotional abandonment?

I enjoyed the depth of the characters. Muriel's sense of humor came from a place of pain, but revealed the strength of the survivor. Pia's superficiality was altered as she came to Muriel with a big secret: a tragic event that would change all of their lives. And finally, in New Mexico, we meet Logan again, as the last of the secrets and lies are revealed.

In the opening scenes of the story, the flashbacks and fast forwards sometimes came too quickly, jolting me a bit. But then I began to settle into the flow of it.

There was a sweet feeling of new beginnings at the end. Not in an unrealistic way, but in the manner of baby steps and slow progress. There was a glimpse of hope. Recommended for those who relish family stories that are replete with secrets, especially when they are revealed slowly. Four stars.
Mary Hogan Library Request, it seems I'm going against the grain with my opinion of Two Sisters. It truly was a disconnect for me, what was with all the holly than thou sentiment, and the whole ethnic from old country mentality when the book was clearly set in the 80's. It was not executed at all. The total abuse that was felt by the maim protagonist was revolting it was inflicted by her mother, her sister and by the shear disassociation from her father and brother.

Sorry this book was frenetic and had no redeeming qualities. I would not recommend for others to read. Thank goodness this was a library book, not a purchase I made. Mary Hogan

review Two Sisters

A powerful and poignant debut novel about two sisters learning how to live with the emotional damage caused by years of keeping family secrets

The third child in a family that wanted only two, Muriel Sullivant has always been the outsider. Single, twenty-three, she’s living in a New York City rent-stabilized walk-up, a bird’s nest of an apartment outfitted as much by serendipity as by intent: note the three-legged bedside table, her squat hand-painted pine dresser, a splotchy framed mirror, the spindled bathroom corner shelf—all found curbside on garbage day.

Her perfect older sister, Pia, lives in an endless house in Connecticut with her handsome, thick-haired husband, Will, her tween daughter, Emma, and a frothy, russet-colored Labradoodle named Root Beer. Pia is altogether Muriel’s opposite. Muriel eats takeout from the carton; Pia makes salads from the microgreens in her garden. Pia takes “me” time to pray and do yoga. She believes every word in the bible, her faith pure and unquestioning. Pia is remarkably like their mother, Lidia. Or so Lidia would have Pia believe. Muriel knows better. Years earlier she discovered the truth about her mother’s lies—not that she’ll ever tell.

The story begins on an ordinary Saturday which turns out to be anything but. When Pia calls Muriel out of the blue, Muriel expects the same lecture about slimming down, toning up, highlighting her hair, getting a better job, and moving into an elevator building. Only this time it’s different. Distressingly so. Pia takes the train into the city to visit her sister and leave her with—yet another—terrible secret she is sworn to keep. Two Sisters

From the synopsis, I assumed that the story would focus on the relationship between Muriel and Pia, the two sisters. Well, there are two sisters in the story, but I'm still puzzled over what the focus of this book was supposed to be as it wasn't about their relationship. It was a bit all over the place, as though the author couldn't make up her mind about what type of story she wanted to tell.

We start off with two narrators alternating chapters, but that soon peters out. Every now and again a different narrator would pop up, but the main voice is Muriel's. There are occasional flashbacks that I didn't realize were flashbacks until later, which made things a little confusing. Maybe making the storyline messy, the way that life is messy, was the author's intention? I'm still not sure.

Unfortunately, I didn't find any of the characters very likable. Muriel seems to have no purpose or direction to her life, but I kept forgetting that she was in her early twenties because she acted so much older. I got the impression that she blamed her family for her lackluster life, which is one of my pet peeves. I don't care what your upbringing was like, but once you're an adult it's up to you to turn your life around and take charge!

Mother Lidia is an unlikable, self-centered woman, married to Owen, an aloof, distant man. Sister Pia is an unrelatable golden girl who seems to have always had it all. We don't really get to know brother Logan, as he left home when Muriel was still a child.

Despite not liking any of the characters and what I found to be a chaotic storyline, I still kept reading as I wanted to see what would happen next. I found myself wishing that a strong editor had tightened things up, but the story still seemed to work. I'm curious to see what other readers thought of this one! Mary Hogan Muriel has been keeping secrets her whole life - things she knows about her mother, things she knows about her sister... And the truth is that although neither of them have been especially affectionate with her, she's never, ever revealed what she knows to anyone. When her sister arrives one afternoon for a surprise visit, however, Muriel is faced with the biggest secret of all. One that will have devastating results. Finally Muriel will have to face the truth about her family and the things they've all been keeping from one another.

On the one hand I found TWO SISTERS to be something of an easy read. I was quickly swept up in the story through Hogan's somewhat breezy style. Her imagery in particular was beautiful. But the actual story itself was an emotionally rough one for me. I have three sisters, all quite a bit younger than me, and a brother as well, so the that any siblings would have such an awful relationship with each other or with their parents was hard for me to read.

And my first instinct really is to say that this whole family is pretty much awful. No, they aren't physically abusive to one another, but for the main character (Muriel) to literally question why no one loved her is truly painful!

Hogan's adult debut does give the reader lots to think about, especially with regards to family relationships. This is yet another read that I can't truly say I enjoyed - it was just too heart wrenching for that. Mary Hogan The story of the two sisters is like a grapefruit; fragrant, special and often bitter but good for your guts and spa inclined mind. It's a beautiful and bittersweet, suck you in type of a book that made me feel as if my fingers were glued to the pages, I read most of it in bed on a Sunday shedding a tear or two towards the end, weeks later as I'm writing this review as my first one got deleted by a clumsy accident, it still haunts me. This book is based on something real that the author has experienced and that echo of that intensity rings true though the work.

Muriel is an adult but as a child she wasn't considered the pearl of the family, she's nowhere near Pia's statuesque tanned, gold haired blonde beauty often dismissed by her perfectionist mother Lidia and her absent minded father, she grows up to have her own isolated life after a childhood of secrets and betrayals but her past comes back to haunt her when her perfect sister comes for a sudden unexpected visit, old scabs and wounds reopen whether she's ready or not with shocking new revelations that will forever change the entire family.

This was some great stuff, I loved the story and felt it's pains and tribulations, now that's always appreciated, a tale that makes me feel what I felt here means a lot to me.This is part mystery as in what's going on/ juicy family secrets, realism and escapism, just good reading with a heart jerking message.
Mary Hogan Wow...this book was awful on so many levels that I don't know where to begin. I was immediately turned off by the misspelled names Lidia and Madalyn. Neither would have existed at the time. The book is supposed to bounce back and forth from the early 80s to now...however, the setting and characteristics of the parents were totally wrong for the 80s...they would have fit well in the 40s or 50s. Also, no one in that age group would have named a child Muriel.
Muriel is a whiny, fat pathetic loser who constantly thinks about being fat... she also shops at discount stores, which is mentioned so many times it became grating. She has always felt inferior to her pretty blonde sister, because of course this book relies on the pretty=mean overused scenario.... Muriel is a professional victim. yawn.
The parents are flat...selfish, cheating mother, distant, unfeeling father.... no one is that one sided.
The book is less about sisters than about a dysfunctional family. No one is likable or fleshed out. The book switches viewpoints without warning, sometimes even on the same page. Bad editing.
The negative descriptions of childbirth and religion aren't surprising, as they are coupled with the usual fingerwagging on the gay marriage issue. We all must be berated on this issue every time we pick up women's fiction, so that we march in line! Don't deviate or else! Can't we just have a few books without left wing politics beating us over the head?
Overall, this book was disjointed, not true to period and depressing. Mary Hogan A great example of how examining your relationship with someone else often reveals the most about yourself. Mary Hogan