The Almost Sisters: A Novel
(OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen)
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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Joshilyn Jackson. (2017). The Almost Sisters: A Novel. Unabridged HarperAudio.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Joshilyn Jackson. 2017. The Almost Sisters: A Novel. HarperAudio.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Joshilyn Jackson, The Almost Sisters: A Novel. HarperAudio, 2017.
MLA Citation (style guide)Joshilyn Jackson. The Almost Sisters: A Novel. Unabridged HarperAudio, 2017.
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Joshilyn Jackson is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of ten other novels, including gods in Alabama and Never Have I Ever. Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages. A former actor, Jackson is also an award-winning audiobook narrator. She lives in Decatur, Georgia, with her husband and their two children.
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Joshilyn Jackson is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of ten other novels, including gods in Alabama and Never Have I Ever. Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages. A former actor, Jackson is also an award-winning audiobook narrator. She lives in Decatur, Georgia, with her husband and their two children.
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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.
- reviews
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May 1, 2017
Graphic novelist Leia Birch Briggs is single, pregnant with a biracial baby, and unsure of her baby’s father’s name. All she knows is he was dressed like Batman and her last FanCon included a night she will never forget. Meanwhile, her stepsister’s marriage is unraveling, the deadline for her next comic book is quickly approaching despite her massive case of writer’s block, and her grandmother has a form of dementia she’s been keeping hidden for years. When Leia arrives at her grandmother’s home in Alabama to help get her affairs in order, she realizes the illness isn’t the only secret being kept. There’s a trunk of bones in the attic, and Grandma Birchie doesn’t want anyone to know whose they are. Jackson has packed in all the drama needed for a fast-paced summer read, but this isn’t your average beach book. Dark secrets and racism plague Grandma Birchie’s seemingly charming southern town, and Leia will soon find that real-life villains aren’t as easy to identify as the ones in her comic books. Agent: Caryn Karmatz Rudy, Defiore & Company
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- content: A comic illustrator struggling to develop her character's origin story learns her own family's origins when she's suddenly summoned to the small Southern town of her childhood to care for her grandmother. That summary hardly does justice to this multifaceted story, rich in heart and significance and showcasing Joshilyn Jackson's double talents as author and narrator. Jackson works to full advantage her "insider knowledge" of what the author intends to convey and conceal at every stage. She makes all her characters engaging--black, white, young, old, and nerdy. What Jackson has whipped up, seemingly effortlessly, is a complex Southern layer cake, exquisite when you bite through it all at once AND when you return to nibble individual layers--as many listeners most certainly will. K.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
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February 15, 2017
After a daring one-night stand at a comics convention, graphic novelist Leia Birch Briggs is having a biracial baby. She's still gearing up to tell her conventional Southern family when her stepsister's marriage comes crashing down and her 90-year-old grandmother collapses into dementia. When Leia starts cleaning out grandma Birchie's old Victorian, she discovers a family secret dating back to the Civil War. With a 100,000-copy first printing.Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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February 15, 2017
After a daring one-night stand at a comics convention, graphic novelist Leia Birch Briggs is having a biracial baby. She's still gearing up to tell her conventional Southern family when her stepsister's marriage comes crashing down and her 90-year-old grandmother collapses into dementia. When Leia starts cleaning out grandma Birchie's old Victorian, she discovers a family secret dating back to the Civil War. With a 100,000-copy first printing.
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
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Starred review from April 15, 2017
Leia, a self-proclaimed superhero-comics dork, narrates this light-dark Southern story of family, race, and belonging with affection, humor, and well-timed profanity, bound to please fans of the best-selling author's six previous novels (e.g., The Opposite of Everyone). The story opens with Leia's realization that she--a 38-year-old white woman in the male-dominated world of comic books--is pregnant after a one-night stand at a convention with a black fan of her work. Disruption continues when her stepsister's perfect life and her feisty 90-year-old grandmother's independent one break down in quick succession. To help, Leia takes her teen niece to Birchville, AL, where she spent childhood summers and where all (small-town) hell is about to break loose. VERDICT Both literary and women's fiction readers will appreciate Leia's smart/sassy narrative. Book clubs will find much to talk about in this multigenerational, Southern tale of sisters, friendship, and small-town life, including the author's signature quirky characters and deft touch with serious topics such as aging, race, and cultural identity. [See Prepub Alert, 1/18/17.]--Laurie Cavanaugh, Thayer P.L., Braintree, MA
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Starred review from May 1, 2017
Jackson (The Opposite of Everyone, 2016, etc.) has written another spirited page-turner set in a new South still haunted by the ghosts of the old.Leia, single at 38, writes popular graphic novels but is gun-shy with men. Following a boozy one-night stand at a comic-book convention, she has "fetched up pregnant" with a biracial child. Then she hears that her beloved 90-year-old grandma Birchie has slipped into dementia and is acting out: at church, Birchie has loudly, and lewdly, revealed what she knows about the new pastor's relationship with a (married) parishioner. Leia decides to take charge, driving from her home in Norfolk, Virginia, to the small town in Alabama where Birchie lives with her lifelong friend Wattie, a black woman whose mother was her family's housekeeper. Complications ensue--not least of which is the discovery of a trunk filled with the bones of someone who has met a violent end. There's a whiff of Southern Gothic here and plenty of sex, lies, and family secrets. (The author's fans will also recognize some elements from earlier novels). But Jackson is bighearted and, in the end, optimistic. She writes vivid, funny characters, and her voice is distinctive and authentic. She can also toss off amusing pop-culture references that make this narrative sound very au courant: Leia's stepsister's divorce "would be so perfectly done it would make Gwyenth Paltrow's conscious uncoupling look like a bar brawl." Jackson doesn't do trite. Even when Leia ruminates on race, the author frames things in a fresh way: "There was no such thing as mixed-race in...America....The whole country had called a mixed-race man our 'first black president.' " Perhaps the novel overreaches--the ending is a bit sober for what comes before--but it's not a major flaw. A satisfying, entertaining read from an admired writer who deserves to be a household name.COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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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...
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