The Ugly Sister

by Jane Fallon

[Leah]

Jane Fallon is an author I’ve enjoyed before. I remember picking up Getting Rid of Matthew a few years back now and I really enjoyed the fresh take on affairs, how Helen was trying to get rid of Matthew, the man she was having an affair with rather than trying to take him from his wife. I then read Got You Back which was even better, I really loved that one. I somehow skipped Foursome, though I have it on my shelf, and so when I got a proof copy of The Ugly Sister I dove right in, hoping for something in a similar vein to her first two novels.

The Ugly Sister is interesting. I’ll give Fallon that. I like books about sibling rivalry and done right it can be a brilliant read however for the entire time I was reading The Ugly Sister, it felt off-kilter somehow. The writing style was off with a mix of third-person present and past tense and it’s as if Fallon couldn’t decide which worked better (for the record, if you’re writing in third-person, past is always best), the characters were awful people (awful people!!!) and the plot was contrived at best. I don’t know what I was expecting, but what I got wasn’t it. There was barely any sisterly bonding of any kind, which I suspect is expected, really since Abi and Cleo are as far apart as the North and South pole, but when there’s a novel about sisters you expect some forward-movement, some break to happen in their relationship, some acknowledgement they were/are sisters and there was none. They never even really had it out because Abi was miles too meek to actually say anything, ever.

What really got my goat was Abi herself. Cleo is billed as being a cow. That’s a given. But, boy, Abi is a nightmare herself. She’s hardly an angel and her cop-out that the only reason she never “did” anything with her life was because she could never, ever top Cleo’s achievements was petty. I understand that sisters compare themselves to each other to some extent but to blame your sister because you couldn’t get off your lazy bum to get a better job or make a better life for yourself is ridiculous. I’m surprised it wasn’t Cleo’s fault Abi got pregnant. I mean the novel just read like two thirteen-year-old teenage girls slugging it out over who could prove their life was better/more fulfilled. At times, I couldn’t comprehend how Abby could be the mother of a fully-grown daughter because she acted as if she herself was the daughter at times.

The Ugly Sister just didn’t work for me at all. I got bored of Abi, bored of Cleo, bored of the so-called rivalry. Bored of Abi “wanting to say” all of these things, but never getting the courage to actually say them for God’s sake. I liked the way Fallon portrayed her affairs in previous novels but Abi hankering after her brother-in-law was borderline gross. We’re hearing how she’s blushing/stuttering/making a fool of herself while Jon was still oblivious. All Abi was missing was a peep hole, to make her the ultimate stalker. Neither sister was better than the other and none of the characters – bar the kids – were characters I cared about or wanted to know more about. They were all terrible people, and the whole novel just left a bad taste in my mouth. Coupled with the amateurish writing (Fallon can write so much better; either that or my memories of her first two novels are wrong) it was a recipe for disaster for me. Never mind the ugly sisters, this book was somewhat ugly. (Despite it’s rather attractive cover, I will admit.) Here’s hoping Fallon does better with her next effort. I hope she gets back to her days of Got You Back and Getting Rid of Matthew.