My Sister, My Love

Critics

• Sibling devilry

  The unsolved 1996 murder of six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey remains one of the most bizarre episodes in American crime. It is a mystery that has deepened with the recent death of JonBenet's mother and DNA tests that exonerate the parents. P ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Fri, 24 Sep 2010

• My Sister, My Love

  Unsolved celebrity mysteries have an allure for writers stalking the Great American Novel. Joyce Carol Oates herself explored the death of Marilyn Monroe in Blonde, a far more convincing indictment of dysfunctional parenting and star burnout than is ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Fri, 24 Sep 2010

4 Reviews

• 2 people find this helpful

  

  Joyce Carol Oates isn't known for lightheartedness, but "My Sister, My Love" - a fictionalized version of the JonBenet Ramsey story, so thinly veiled as to risk its own kind of indecency - is a grim book even for her. It's not difficult to see why anyone with Oates's passion for gothic sensationalis ... (continue)

  Joyce Carol Oates isn't known for lightheartedness, but "My Sister, My Love" - a fictionalized version of the JonBenet Ramsey story, so thinly veiled as to risk its own kind of indecency - is a grim book even for her. It's not difficult to see why anyone with Oates's passion for gothic sensationalism, domestic Grand Guignol and the American grotesque would have been attracted to this lurid tale. Indeed, Oates's gift for melodrama should have made her an ideal candidate to explore the death of the beautiful child whose murder shocked and titillated the nation, unleashing a storm of outrage, grief and mawkish sentimentality.
  The novel is narrated by Bliss's older brother, Skyler, 10 years after the 6-year-old's body was discovered in the basement of the family home, her arms duct-taped behind her back and her skull shattered. The case has never been solved, and Skyler's family has been torn apart not just by the tragedy but by its aftermath of tabloid hell. Estranged from his divorced parents, traumatized and guilt-stricken, a murder suspect (especially in the blogosphere) who can't clearly remember the details of that night, 19-year-old Skyler has decided to tell his sister's story on the 10th anniversary of her death, to make his peace with her ghost and with his conscience.

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  greeneye said on Mar 30, 2011 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

• Too hard to read

  I've had to let it go for a while, it really sounded too morbid and scary for me to go on. I plan to finish it and I admit the author has an amazing talent for detailing emotions, both good and bad ones, but sometimes it's just too painful going through the hell of this story.

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  Marianna Montuori said on Apr 12, 2011 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

• 

  USA - 1990's

  Based on a terrible real story, this book is intriguing, gripping and dark, a shocking and very honest portrait of a disfunctional family and society. The style is quite difficult and chaotic which really gives you the impression that Skyler (the brother) wrote the book. The end didn't convince me m ... (continue)

  Based on a terrible real story, this book is intriguing, gripping and dark, a shocking and very honest portrait of a disfunctional family and society. The style is quite difficult and chaotic which really gives you the impression that Skyler (the brother) wrote the book. The end didn't convince me much though.

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  Mati said on Feb 14, 2011 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

• 

  This is a take off on the Jon Benet Ramsey murder told from the brother's perspective. I could not put it down. It is a little on the dark side, but very intriguing.

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  Jamie Gemuend767 said on Aug 15, 2008 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
  (26)
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• English Books
• Paperback 592 Pages
• ISBN-10: 0061547492
• ISBN-13: 9780061547492
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Pub date: Jun 01, 2009
• Dimensions: 1290 mm x 839 mm x 194 mm Just how big is that?
• Also available as: Hardcover and Others
• In other languages: other languages Libri Italiani

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