In My Sisters Shoes: an excellent twist on chick lit (In My Sister's Shoes - Sinead Moriarty)

Member Name: stephbond89

Product:	In My Sister's Shoes - Sinead Moriarty
Date:	02/11/09 (44 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: amazing storyline, heart-warming characters.

Disadvantages: The ending is a little abrupt.

Sinead Moriarty- In my Sisters Shoes


The Author

I had never heard of Sinead Moriarty until I bought this book, which I only bought because I thought it sounded good in the blurb. But since looking Moriarty up for a little insight into her, she is actually quite a big writer.

Sinead Moriarty is Irish, she was born in Dublin, ever since she was a child she wanted to be a writer since watching her mother, a children's book author, writing her stories, and then getting them published, it became Sinead's dream to write a novel.
Moriarty moved to Paris and then London after studying at University, but it wasn't until she was 30 that she started to live her dream, and started writing her stories in her spare time. When she joined a creative writing group she began writing her first novel The Baby Trail, a comedy about a couple struggling to conceive, which was soon snapped up by Penguin books. Sinead has, since writing The Baby Trail, moved back to Dublin where she now lives with her husband, two sons and baby daughter.

She has written more books:
A Perfect Match
From here to Maternity
Whose Life is it anyway
In my Sister's Shoes

Since reading In My Sister's shoes, I will certainly be buying more of her books!

Story
In My Sister's shoes is the story of two sisters, Kate and Fiona O'Brien.
Kate is living her dream in London, she's finally got her own show even if it is on a tiny channel with low viewings, and her own flat, even if it is a tiny box in the city! She has everything she has ever wanted, and she has worked so hard to get it!

Fiona is Kate's older sister, she never left Dublin like her sister and is happy with her little family close by, she never craved the limelight like her younger sister. She is more than happy living in her little house with her husband and her twin sons, with her dad and rapper brother, Derek close by.
But when Fiona get's cancer, the same cancer which killed her mother years before. Kate is forced to leave her job, and come back to Dublin, to help look after the twins; Bobby and Jack, while Fiona is having her chemo and radiotherapy, while her husband, Mark, worked on his Goldwin Prize and generally hides away at work.

So Kate is back living with her dad, the exact place she never wanted to be again. And with Sam back in her life, her old love who she left when she ran away to get a job in London, now married (though separated) and working in Dublin, with no aspiration to move to London, still!
With her dad sleeping with her old gym teacher, and her 27 year old brother trying to get into fame with the grungy Gonzo who keeps making a pass at her. Kate's life gets flipped upside down, trying to take care of two five year old boys, and trying not to worry about her sister's cancer, everything starts piling on top of her.

Will she ever be able to return to her old life, there's already a leggy blonde presenting HER show, and she is finding herself growing fonder and fonder of living at home. But she can't let all that hard work go to waste!
The story is extremely heart-warming, and shows the love and support of sisters and the closeness of family when you need them most. The story is very sad yet has just the right amount of comedy to keep it light and not completely morbid and all about Fiona's cancer.

The story is excellent and nothing like I have read before, it isn't really chick lit although there are elements in there with the relationship between Sam and Kate, but is more about the relationship between the two sisters, family secrets and changes. It just shows that no matter what your family do, they will always be your family, and they'll always love you, just as you'll always love them, no matter what.
It's a beautiful story, but I couldn't help feeling like it was unfinished at the end, it's the type of book which needs an epilogue (which it doesn't have), something like 1 year later, just so we know what happens in the end! I found myself turning the page over when I got the end of the book expecting there to be more on the next page as the end is just so abrupt and unexpected. So this is my only criticism of the book!


Characters

The characters in the book are very believable. Kate is a typical young woman, she wanted her independence, wanted out of the tiny Ireland and wanted the big time, she has high aspirations and won't give up on her dream for anybody. She's a very believable character, and we really see a huge change in her, she softens as the story goes on, and stops thinking about herself so much and put's everybody else first for a change.

Fiona seems to be this boring woman who has to do everything perfectly, her children aren't allowed to eat sweets or have Pizza or in fact eat anything that isn't a Super Food or salad, but she has a secret past which is just waiting to come out.
Mark is the most annoying character in the book, he is threatening and horrible to Kate when he forced her to leave her job to come and look after Fiona and the boys, just so he doesn't have to stop working on his Goldwin prize. He is a very unlikeable character who I don't think anyone could connect with, you just want to find him and give him a good slap, especially about halfway through the book when an event just shows his selfishness.

All in all, the characters are a great bunch, and there are so many different personalities!

Readabilty

The book is very easy to read without been "simple", and it took me just two nights to read the 313 page book as I couldn't put it down! It's definitely a book which is addictive and you feel yourself just want to keep on reading the story and find out more and more about the characters. A great book for young adults, as well as the older generation.

Overall

This is definitely one of the favourite books I have read this year, it's brilliant and so different to anything else I have read. If you enjoy chick lit with a twist, you'll love this book, but make sure you have a tissue with you!!!!

Summary: A fabulous book!