My Sister and Other Lovers by Esther Freud

 Esther Freud writes beautifully but I found this novel incredibly miserable and depressing. It was like a journey through all the worst aspects of the last decades of the twentieth century, including abortion, suicide, drugs and Aids. It’s not an uplifting novel! 

Lucy and Bea, the two sisters at the heartbof the novel, endure a troubled childhood with a peripatetic single mother who often leaves them with strange people, such as an eccentric aristocratic family. Their father has had lots of children and isn’t really interested. In fact, they meet their step-brothers along the way. We follow Lucy as she falls for the wrong men and watches her traumatised sister fall into drug addiction and self-destruction. It’s a hard coming-of-age for Lucy.

Through it all though, there is the enduring bond between the sisters and their mother as they syruggle through the dark days and come out the other side. I didn’t find either Bea or Lucy especially likeable, which was disappointing, but they were both realistic portrayals of damaged characters, very popular now!  It’s a help to have seen Hideous Kinky, which plays a large part in the book. I even read the book as well but it is an old movie now. I might watch it again after reading this book.

This novel seemed to taper off towards the end, I felt. 

I received this free ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review.