The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson is a Southern novel filled with real-world problems, family drama, and hidden family secrets. The story follows Leia Birch Briggs, a graphic novel illustrator, who finds herself pregnant after a one-night stand with a man dressed as Batman. As Leia navigates her unexpected pregnancy and family chaos, she must also care for her ailing grandmother in Birchville, Alabama. Through a series of events, Leia uncovers deep-rooted issues within her family and community, ultimately leading to profound personal revelations that shape her future.
The narrative of The Almost Sisters skillfully weaves together themes of sisterhood, racism, family dynamics, and Southern charm. Joshilyn Jackson's writing style captures the essence of the South, addressing sensitive topics with humor and tenderness. Readers are drawn into Leia's journey of self-discovery, as she grapples with unexpected challenges and uncovers long-buried family secrets that redefine her understanding of love, family, and identity.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings for The Almost Sisters include themes of racism, dementia, family conflict, and unexpected pregnancy, which may be sensitive subjects for some readers.
From The Publisher:
LibraryReads Selection
With empathy, grace, humor, and piercing insight, the author of gods in Alabama pens a powerful, emotionally resonant novel of the South that confronts the truth about privilege, family, and the distinctions between perception and reality-the stories we tell ourselves about our origins and who we really are.
Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs' weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comics convention, the usually level-headed graphic novelist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman.
It turns out the caped crusader has left her with more than just a nice, fuzzy memory. She's having a baby boy-an unexpected but not unhappy development in the thirty-eight year-old's life. But before Leia can break the news of her impending single-motherhood (including the fact that her baby is biracial) to her conventional, Southern family, her step-sister Rachel's marriage implodes. Worse, she learns her beloved ninety-year-old grandmother, Birchie, is losing her mind, and she's been hiding her dementia with the help of Wattie, her best friend since girlhood.
Leia returns to Alabama to put her grandmother's affairs in order, clean out the big Victorian that has been in the Birch family for generations, and tell her family that she's pregnant. Yet just when Leia thinks she's got it all under control, she learns that illness is not the only thing Birchie's been hiding. Tucked in the attic is a dangerous secret with roots that reach all the way back to the Civil War. Its exposure threatens the family's freedom and future, and it will change everything about how Leia sees herself and her sister, her son and his missing father, and the world she thinks she knows.
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1 comment(s)
i don't think this is jackson's best work, which i am a huge fan of
i was really excited for this to come out, because jackson is a master of taking a theme and looping it around in ways you don't expect that never feel contrived
and she does that here, with sisters and mirrors all over the place
maybe i find the main character, leia birch briggs, a little unbelievable because i read this after a bunch of nazis descended on charlottesville
leia is not a stupid woman; she's talented, sensitive, smart, loving, all things jackson does a great job of showing us, just like she shows all her characters so well
so why does leia not really get that the south she was raised in is super racist until she is carrying a mixed-race baby and racism boils up in her town for what cannot possibly be the first time?
i found that a bit disappointing, just like i find all the people around me in boston saying "it's obvious that the kkk is not even a real thing, what is happening" to be disappointing
it says a lot about how much i like her writing that i hold jackson's characters to the same standards i hold my friends in real life, i guess
other than that, this is a great book in jackson's tradition of contemporary light southern gothic
also someone in the comic book world please bring leia's comic to life because i am 100% here for that
What can you read after
The Almost Sisters?
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