Julie's Review: Names My Sisters Call Me

Summary: Courtney, Norah, and Raine Cassel are as different as three sisters can be. Norah, the oldest, is a type A obsessive who hasn't forgiven Raine, the middle sister, for ruining her wedding day six years ago. Raine is Norah's opposite, a wild child/performance artist/follow-your-bliss hippie chick who ran off to California. The only thing the two have in common is their ability to drive Courtney, their youngest sister, crazy.

When her longtime boyfriend proposes, Courtney decides it's finally time to call a truce and bring the three sisters together. After all, they're grown-ups now, right? But it turns out that family ghosts aren't easily defeated--and neither are first loves. Soon Courtney finds herself reexamining every choice she has made in the past six years--including the man she's about to marry--and the value of reconnecting with the sisters she knows she needs, in spite of everything.~amazon.com

Review: Names My Sisters Call Me is a decent, predictable read. I honestly don't know why I expect more from books about the relationships of adult sisters because seemingly they all fall short. What bugged me most about this one is that it was stereotypical. The eldest sister, Norah, was a control freak, type-A; the middle sister, Raine, was a free spirit; and the youngest sister, Courtney, was coddled and didn't know how to think for herself because everything was done for her. While the book was supposed to be about sisters, I found most if revolved around the ex-boyfriend/childhood friend of Courtney and Raine, Matt Cheaney. I wanted a book about the complex relationships of sisters and I didn't get that. I have a sister and we never competed with each other like the sisters in this book. Did we battle? Heck yeah but vie for the same guy...HECK NO! Granted there were 4 years between us but we've never tried to out do each other. She's truly my best friend so I definitely couldn't relate to these 3 sisters.

I found Courtney to be likable enough and I wanted her to make the right choice for her in regards to love and enjoyed reading her epiphany. I expected some big twist to come during the novel but it didn't. I didn't even think that Norah was all that controlling, she was just put in the situation of having to be responsible before her time and ended up getting very hurt by her sister. Raine, was just absolutely annoying to me. She was almost a caricature of a person. I'm sure there are people like that but I found her whole "spiritual" personality to be a bit much. There is some humor that I enjoyed and the banter between Luke and Courtney was great.

I enjoyed her fiance Luke and her best friend Verena. I would have liked a little more focus on the mom since it seemed like she should have been closely tied to the girls' relationship with each other. The relationships between the 3 just seemed so one-dimensional and not very "real". Maybe this is what Ms. Crane has experienced or what she perceives sisterhood to be but that's not my reality or I'm guessing many others out there.

I've read 3 other of Ms. Crane's books before and this one definitely falls short. I would recommend Everyone Else's Girl or English as a Second Language before this one.

Final Take: 3.5/5