Sholm Pearly

The Sister Surprise by Abigail Mann is a cheerful family novel, if you can imagine Bridget Jones stepping into Cold Comfort Farm or something like that, you wouldn’t be too far off. This is definitely a feel good book for people looking to relax with light reading. 

We follow Ava, a bit of a neat freak who at almost 30 still lives with her mum and in fact has a bit of trouble standing on her own with that activist symbol’s shadow over her. She gets bullied about at work too, ending up discovering she has a sister live on second rate reality internet the benefit of her employer. Obviously Ava rushes to know more, who wouldn’t want to know more?

The book is full of good intentions and little funny touches, I think many will enjoy it. It feels genuine and people will relate with the awkward hero. But I admit this is not quite what I expected. The pace was a little strange to me. Maybe I expected more humour, maybe it just was not my humour, things slowed down when I expected them to speed up, the strings were a little too thick for me, the reflections of Ava were too obviously flawed to have me rooting for her. I did not like her choices and that made it hard.

But I think my opinion is not really reflexive of the majority. There is a lot of good intentions in this feel good novel and I’m sure many will find plenty of “aw” moments to warm their hearts.