Juliet by Anne Fortier

Juliet had an intriguing premise and I waited eagerly to get my hands on the audiobook.  When her great aunt dies, Julie Jacobs is left with a mystery to solve – not the least of which is why she had never been told her real name: Giulietta Tolomei. Taking the new passport, the key, and the letter all left to her by her aunt, Julie takes off for Siena to find her past and maybe the “treasure” her mother had talked about before she died. Sounds great, doesn’t it!? But Julie is one of the most irritating characters I’ve met in a long time. If she is going to be clever enough to unravel all the plot twists, she can’t be as functionally clueless as portrayed at the start. I wanted to stick with it in hopes that we’d ‘click,’ but by the end of disc 2, I was yelling at my car stereo. Sometimes a book is better in one format than another, but I doubt Julie would be any more appealing in print.

CAS

SISTER by Rosamund Lupton

This debut novel is not for the emotionally faint of heart. If you have a sister, beware of its impact. The book opens with Tess already dead, but is told by Beatrice (Bee) the elder sister. She covers the time from receiving news that her sister is missing forward as a narrative addressed to her sister. There are flashbacks to earlier times in the way we do when something in the present triggers a shared memory. There are apologies and criticisms and tears. But this is no weepy-waily-oh poor me story – Bee evolves into her best, strongest self as she works to uncover the truth of her sister’s death. What grabbed me was the grinding sense of loss that permeates the narrative on an almost subconscious level – always present but not overt. This felt universal to one who has three sisters and never even wants to imagine this loss. Beautifully written and with a great twist at the end, I’m glad it’s fiction.

cas