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Book Reviews Title My
Sister, Victoria Fiction-Net
Rating Buy It
From Amazon.co.uk - BUY
NOW! Cover
Story Ruth's greatest
friend is her beautiful cousin Victoria. From
summer holidays by the sea, when they first swear
eternal friendship, through school and university,
they are as close as any sisters: Ruthie ever happy
to give, Vicky always happy to take. As Ruth grows
up and their lives diverge, she becomes aware that
her relationship with Victoria has undermined her
life. But she doesn't realise quite how much until
she is betrayed one final, terrible time...
We
Say This is a tale
that's been told many, many times. It follows the
relationship between two quite different women -
Ruth (plain & overlooked) and Victoria
(beautiful & adored) - from their shared
childhood to estranged adulthood. You're introduced
to them on Ruth's 37th birthday as she receives an
unexpected, and unwelcome, letter which causes her
to review her life. You will be
expected to be swept into their lives, desperate to
know what awful thing Victoria has done, but you
won't be. In fact, I very quickly stopped caring
what happened to either woman. Victoria is - to
borrow a phrase from my mother - a spoiled little
madam. We are told constantly how beautiful,
talented, enchanting & adored she is and how
easy it is to fall in love with her. I couldn't see
it myself. I didn't like her, never mind love her,
and I can't imagine anyone who would. Perhaps if
Ruth hadn't mentioned early on, "Mine was a
birthday that people found easy to forget, not like
Victoria" it might have been different, but I doubt
it. Why do so many
people put up with Victoria's increasingly
appalling behaviour? Apparently because she's
stunning, and the beautiful people have a different
set of rules. These rules seems to involve being
self centred & manipulative and nobody minding
. . . hmm. Then, telling the
tale, is our heroine Ruth. I wanted to care about
her, I really did, but I couldn't. She's wet, needy
and pathetic. She spends the entire book doing
exactly as Victoria wants, including taking an
ex-boyfriend off her hands when she's finished with
him! I'm afraid that sympathy for a character so
malleable is impossible. Despite not
giving a damn, I struggled through to the
unsatisfactory ending. 'My Sister, Victoria' is
supposed to be a character-driven novel but the
main characters are so dismal, it just doesn't
work. When you finally get to Victoria's betrayal
(page 363 for anyone who wants to skip straight to
it) you've already worked it out. The betrayal is
obvious and inevitable, a bit like the book
itself. Review by: Kate
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