The Sisters

The Sisters 

The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Khemiri, 656 pages.

As intimated by the title, The Sisters is about sisters and (surprise!) a guy. The novel spans thirty years of their intertwined lives as Swedish-Tunisians mostly living in Sweden with short forays to Tunisia and New York. There are several throughlines, such as a curse, difficult family dynamics, and life between two cultures, but the book is really about maturing and finding your place in the world. The book is structured in a fascinating way. It is divided up into six parts with each part covering a shorter time span. The first part is a year which compresses to a single minute by the final, sixth section.

I love books with complicated family dynamics. Khemiri really shines when writing about the sisters and the relationship they have with each other and extended family. While Jonas' (the guy) voice is used as an outside perspective to the sister's lives, I am not sure his character brought a lot to the story and I questioned why he was there at all. The book is a solid 656 pages, but I was invested enough to want more.