Book Review - A Sister's Story; Donatella Di Pietrantonio

A Sister's Story; Donatella DiPietrantonio

Europa Editions - 2022

After loving A Girl Returned (2019) and rating it a 5 star read for me, I was looking forward to this sequel.  This book was also translated by Ann Goldstein from the Italian.  Unfortunately, it felt almost like it was written by a different author.  

This is a story about sisters, one sister, our unnamed narrator, is a literature professor in Grenoble and she is "The Girl Returned" (as a teen) from the first book.  The other sister is Adriana, is a rather flighty, selfish and shallow young woman who seems to live for the moment.  She has a son named Vincenzo.  As the story opens our unnamed sister gets a call urging her to come to Pescara, Italy but, not the reason she has been summoned until quite a bit later.  The sisters have not seen each other in a good number of years and, we do eventually learn that Adriana is hospitalized after a bad fall and is in critical condition.  

While I was trying to figure out why one sister was summoned, we learn what has been going on in the lives of both sisters - neither came across as people I'd want to root for.  Although the story is only 176 pages, the structure was all over the place - not only does the story move back and forth in time, it also includes past and present relationships of the sisters and a few minor characters as well which was a tad confusing.  It's difficult for me not to compare this series to: My Brilliant Friend series, Elena Ferrante, another series about unlikeable Italian sisters. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this novel without at least reading " A Girl Returned" first.

Rating - 3/5 stars 

Note:  An eGalley was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for my unbiased review.