Saturday, March 21, 2009

The Geometry of Sisters-Luanne Rice

The Geometry of Sisters
Luanne Rice
Bantam, Apr 14 2009, $25.00
ISBN: 9780553805130

Still reeling from the deaths of her husband and oldest daughter Carrie during a storm off Mackinac Island, Maggie Shaw obtains a job teaching English at the prominent Newport Academy in Newport, Rhode Island. Her two other children, the well adjusted sixteen years old Travis and the deeply disturbed fourteen years old Beck-accompany her on the move from Ohio.

In Newport, Beck meets and befriends fellow math prodigy Lucy, who hopes to create a computation that will lead to her late father visiting her. Beck on the other hand turns to math for solace as principles don’t leave. Travis struggles with two girls; the one in hand vs. the one he left behind. Meanwhile as Maggie readjusts to New England, having been at the academy before, she prays for a miracle as Carrie’s body was never recovered.

This is an engaging look at grief as Maggie seeks solace by retuning to a place that she was happy in her past. She is not there for her two teens who have issues as she can only deal with herself at this time. The story line is character driven as the three surviving Shaw family members each cope (or not) in their own unique way. However, when the plot takes a spin that most readers will see coming, it loses some of the acute angles that make up THE GEOMETRY OF SISTERS.

Harriet Klausner

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