Kate Pullinger’s Weird Sister (1999)
McArthur & Company, 2000
I’ve had this book on my shelves for ages.
Which I feel doubly guilty about because it was a gift from a bookish friend.
But not a gift of a book she especially loved, but one that she hadn’t read; she thought might be fun, and chose it largely for its mass market format (which is especially delightful when you’re used to reading literary trade paperbacks that outweigh and outsize the pocketbooks easily).
So that takes some of the guilt out. Doesn’t it? Or does it intensify it because I didn’t even read a “fun” gift?!
Does this make me a terrible bookfriend? Do you read every book that you’re given as a gift?
You would have thought that the cover blurb from the Times Literary Supplement would have sucked me into it right away:
“Daphne du Maurier retold by Margaret Atwood…Pullinger’s most thrilling novel to date.”
And that is what drew me to it at this juncture.
I think I would enjoy Daphne du Maurier’s writing a great deal more with a dose of Margaret Atwood injected into the prose.
And the other thing that has pulled me to Weird Sister, is the IFOA event with her this evening (just one of several events this evening: see the IFOA site for details).
But I think I’m suffering the too-many-good-books-in-a-row phenomenon because I’m having trouble focussing on this one. Is it me?
Have you read her before? Should I persist? Or consider it a book out of time and turn elsewhere?
Thanks, Erin: I have put it on hold because I really do think it was just a matter of timing.
And all the more so, thanks to Kate’s reminder, because I, too, read Mistress of Nothing and I did really enjoy it!
Thanks, Lija: I ended up sinking into Kirkman’s The Walking Dead series, and that did the trick. Terrific storytelling and characterization, and wholly different from Kate Pullinger: I’m sure I’ll settle back into Weird Sister in no time now!
I haven’t read anything by Pullinger, but I know what you’re talking about. Sometimes I find it helps to mix it up, genre-wise. Like to read some non-fiction or young adult stuff in between the more “literary” reads.
I read (and enjoyed) Mistress of Nothing earlier this year. Easy to get in to and an easy read over all. But there’s a time for every book, and if now isn’t the time for you to read and enjoy this one, maybe it’s turn will come around in a few months!
I haven’t read her before, but I’ve definitely felt the effects a string of good books can have on whatever I pick up next. I have several books that I’ve declared get a second shot because they just got unlucky with their placement in my reading lineup!
The book does sound interesting, though. I’d probably put it “on hold,” as I say, pick up something else, and then try Weird Sister again later on.