An utterly immersive novel about the intertwining lives of two sisters: Joan is careful and the Vivian is larger than life. Joan's life is transformed when she has to fulfill her sister's dying request. The characters are so precisely real that the novel reads like a memoir. A beautiful book.

This book was a beautiful story about family. I enjoyed it so much.

It was definitely worth the read.

An ARC was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was fiction however the way that the author wrote it had it reading more like a memoir. This left me really shocked and pleasantly surprised at the same time. This was a fairly short read however it really drew me in as a reader. This book is all about our main character Joan who is left caring for her aging and dying mother while her sister Vivian is working with doctors without borders in Africa. One day Vivian asks her sister to become her if anything were to happen to her and Joan reluctantly agrees thinking nothing of it. When the unthinkable happens and Joan actually has to keep her promise is when the book really starts to catch fire.
I thought that the switching was really strange especially since the person they wanted to fool was their mother. Shouldn't their mother be able to tell her daughters apart? However this made it to be a very compelling story. I loved the twists in this book but what I loved the most was how the author was able to show the reader how the relationship was strained but still full of love between both sisters it made it more realistic for the reader. The two sisters in this story couldn't be more different but each tried their best in their own way even if the other one didn't see it. The book jumps a little bit between when both girls were young and shows their relationship and what brought them each to where they were in the present day. While I don't normally like time jumps in my novels I understand completely what it was necessary in this case and I can't imagine it written any other way. I was surprised that this book wasn't a bit more dark considering the plot, however the lightness of it made it easier to get lost in. This book had lots of family struggles that made you empathize with both sisters. Very good read this is one that will tug at your heart and leave you thinking about it long after it is done.

What a beautiful evocative book. Joan is so realistic, it almost read like a memoir, not a novel. What starts as an agreement to please her sister, Vivian, quickly turns into something much more. The premise starts a bit unrealistic. Not that Joan would agree to be Vivian if she dies, but that Vivian would die so conveniently and so soon afterwards. But considering the depth to the rest of the story, that was a small point in an otherwise wonderful story.

I don't know if I was fully in the right mood for this when I read it. I loves the Toronto setting, but every time I sat down to read this, I felt quite sad and a little depressed.

There are some aspects of this book that can be difficult to get through, especially regarding mental health. I may need to revisit this one in the future to give it a fairer shot.

2.5 out of 5 rounded up to 3.

This is a 3.5 star read for me. If you suspend your disbelief that impersonating your sister is a manageable task to take on (??), this is a rather enjoyable read. The plot is creative and the writing is engaging. This was a good palate cleanser for me in between heavier books!

I really enjoyed this short novel with an original, clever premise. Dutiful #obliger Torontonian Joan promises her wilder, #questioner sister Vivien, who lives in Africa, that should V. predecease their dying, fragile mother, Joan will pretend to be her sister on email and Facebook to save Mom the pain of loss on her own deathbed. There are complications. I loved that this story was so Canadian, being in large part about nice polite people and health care. Very interesting and sympathetic characters, and insights into the unique nature of each elderly parent's relationships with adult children. In the end, Joan has some questions too. Satisfying!
#onlysisters #lilliannattel #tendencyspotting #gretchenrubin #bookstagramcanada #minibookreview #ireadcanadian #lml_reads

This is a novel about grief; not just grieving death, but grieving the past, grieving failed relationships, and grieving “what could have been “.
Our main character Joan is a middle-aged palliative care doctor who gently and respectfully helps the critically ill navigate their remaining months on earth. However, When her mother Sheila becomes ill, Joan finds it difficult to not only help her mother find peace but also difficult to reconcile with her past.
Early in the novel, Joan’s sister Vivan ( a nurse working with Doctors without Boarders) Skypes to tell her that she is going to a remote village to help with the Ebola crisis. Vivian requests that if anything happens to her, Joan is to take on her persona and continue communicating with their mother via text and messenger until Sheila dies, thus sparing her the heartache of losing a daughter in her final days.
Yes, soon Joan gets word that Vivian does indeed die, leaving Joan's responsibility of helping her mother come to peace with both her daughters.
This novel obviously does deal a lot with death and dying, not exactly light reading fare. But it also deals with love and hope and the strength that comes with facing your truth.

Joan is a doctor who specializes in palliative care. Often her practice takes her into the patient homes. She does her best to make her patients comfortable and support the families that are caring for them.
Joan’s older sister Vivien is a nurse who provides care to those in need in remote parts of the world.
The two sisters grew up in a dysfunctional household where their Mother’s obsession to constantly declutter made their lives extremely uncomfortable.
Now that their widowed mother Sheila is seriously ill, the dutiful Joan has moved back into the old family home. Vivien has reached out to Joan upon hearing of their mother’s illness. Vivien is on her way to a remote village to deal with an Ebola outbreak. Concerned that she might die before her mother Vivien gets Joan to promise to pose as her online to prevent Sheila from discovering the truth. Sadly Vivien does die and Joan feels obligated to keep her sister’s last wishes.
While the storyline is plausible I think the reader needs to accept the premise in order to enjoy the story. I liked the story. It didn’t “Wow” me but it was a good read overall.
Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced digital edition of the this novel.

I sadly really could not get into this one. I tried going back to it a few times but It ended up being a DNF for me.

The writing is beautiful and the plot is creative in theory, but I just wasn’t pulled in and couldnt stay interested.

The premise intrigued me right from the start and maintained it. Such a good book! I particularly enjoyed the relationship between the two sisters and found it realistic. I've enjoyed handselling it to my customers.

First, thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for my ARC. The review is strictly my own and unbiased .
Vivian and Joan are sisters, both in the medical field but continents apart.. Vivien is the adventurous one and left home as soon as it was possible, leaving Joan to the mundane every day life of living with and looking after their mother. Their father was an alcoholic and Sheila, their mother, constantly cleaned house and threw away everyone’s possessions only to go out and buy new ones. Now, Sheila is ill and Vivien can’t get home from Africa to see her as she’s heading to a village where Ebola is spreading like wildfire. Vivien talks to Joan and says because of treating the villagers with Ebola she runs the risk of dying, herself. Joan is asked by Vivien to pretend to be her on social media and in emails, if she passes, so that their mother won’t grieve for her daughter and will concentrate on keeping herself alive. Sadly, Vivien dies and Joan embarks on impersonating her sister. Difficult at first, because they were so different, she gradually warms to the role. All is going well until a man shows up on Facebook claiming to be the baby Vivien gave up for adoption when she was 16. From then on, the ruse becomes more difficult to uphold. Sheila becomes frail and Joan must continue her charade to help give her mother strength to continue living. The house of cards becomes a shaky one.
I loved this book. The characters were genuine and I felt they could be my next door neighbours. In these times, social media is the way of communicating with those you don’t/can’t see often. Perhaps there are a lot of folks on there who really aren’t who they say they are, like Joan. But family is everything in this book. And as it goes back and forth from Vivien and Joan’s childhoods to modern day, family is the constant, be it good or bad.
I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did. I’ll be checking out Lilian Nattel’s other books.

This was a different story from the ones I usually read (mysteries) but I found it very engaging once I got into the story I wanted to find out what was going to happen to Joan and how she was going to get out of the situation of her own creation.

Only Sisters was recommended to me by NetGalley, and I really tried to like it. It just wasn't the book for me. From the start I found it difficult to get into and a bit creepy that one of the sisters pretends to be the other sister after she's died to make things easier for their mom. There were a lot of mental health issues with each family member so be warned if you do read this book.
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I'm not even fully done with this book but felt to give a review nonetheless as it's a great read! There are many books I read that I just want to flip through the pages as fast as possible but this isn't one of them. It's a great story that's unravelling and I'm loving even the unravelling part of it!

Sisters - Joan and Vivien are two very different women.
Joan stayed home, looked after her mother, got a job as a palliative care doctor., spent her life taking care of other people.
Vivien also took care of people, but she did it as far away from home as she could, throwing herself in the line of danger, traveling to remote villages, never settling down.

When their mother falls ill, Vivien concocts a plan, that should anything happen to her, Joan would pretend to be her until after their mother has passed.
So because this would be a VERY short book otherwise, Vivien passes away and Joan takes on the roll of her sister.

I don't think there was one member in this family who did not suffer from unchecked and untreated mental illness and trauma, so that made this book quite intense and often hard to read.
There is a lot of sadness in this book, so be prepared for that.

Unfortunately for me I felt the sadness bogged this book down, I didn't think there was enough of a story to carry that weight and because of this I just felt anxious while I was reading it.
Maybe I was just in the wrong headspace for this, but I cant say this is a book I would recommend.

I received this as an arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I kind of struggled to get invested in this book. It’s not my usual genre but the premise sounded interesting enough for me to give it a go. I really liked how the story is based in Toronto as it made it so much easier for me to place the story in my mind as a GTA resident. Overall, this wasn’t my favourite book but it wasn’t bad. I do think it kind of dragged on at parts but I’m not sure whether that had to do with me being a little bored because I was struggling a bit to really get into it or not.

The title will have you believe this is a story about the bond between sisters and although it is that it is more about family as a whole. Family is complicated and so are the connections in this book. Family, inter generational trauma, abuse and end of life are all central themes to this story. Despite dealing with such serious themes it is not a hard read and the characters are all likeable and relatable,

I went into this curious, it had been a NG recommends to me, and definitely piqued my interest from the synopsis. However I am not sure I was the right reader for it..

Spoilers ahead so don’t read if you want to go into it blind.

“Human beings can recover from a broken heart. They do it again and again”. And that about sums up the book for me. It was a broken family who hurt each other and themselves over and over again.

Two huge things I struggled with:

……..


First. I found it so creepy that Joan pretended to be her sister after death. Vivien had been overseas working with difft organizations like Doctors Without Borders and with a clear separation from her family back home. When Joan opens an email (not sure how you get death notices that way since there would be a body and regulations) that her sister has died. It’s that moment where Vivien’s grief gets morphed into becoming her sister in social media form. She pretends to converse with their mother (who has clear mental health issues), family friends and even reaches out to Vivien’s son Bruno who she gave up for adoption. Creepy and so wrong reading the conversation… even if i realize it’s fiction, I just hated those pieces of the storyline.

Second biggest thing for me was more about the way in which the whole narrative spoke about mental health. It’s clear that every single member of this family had their pain and issues, some manifesting in alcohol and some in control, but it felt to me as the reader that it was just a sad spotlight on one family’s pain. Mental health representation is so impt to be done well and this just felt flippant 😞 I was sad for all of them except Vivien who clearly traumatized by her family took over in an escape from them all.

If you read this, please go into it knowing the triggers because there are a lot of readers who will find these characterizations harmful.

The one redeeming part I liked for it became emotional was the part where Ruth and Joan were having a heart-to-heart. It’s why I ended with a 2 ⭐️

Ultimately it was a “not for me” book. But I do appreciate the chance to read it with a gifted copy.


Triggers: alcoholism, compulsive spartanism, verbal abuse, teenage pregnancy, adoption, racial discrimination on skin colouring, cancer, sexual assault, mental health issues

This was a beautiful story of a woman's life in a dysfunctional family that managed to provoke sympathy and understanding and bring clarity of the often murky ties that make a true family. I loved the author's approach to the story, very unique. So many sensitive subjects were managed with love and kindness. The details were rich and beautifully painted and I have rarely enjoyed a book more.