Review by Booklist Review
In her seventh novel (after Labor Day, 2009), Maynard tells an evocative story of two babies born on the same day in the same hospital to two starkly different families. Ruth, dreamy and artistic, is born into a pragmatic farm family, while Dana, interested in plants and animals, seems more grown up than her flighty parents, who are constantly moving. Nevertheless, Ruth's mother makes a point of visiting Dana's family almost every year, wherever they are, calling the two girls birthday sisters. As the years pass, Ruth finds the love of her life and tragically loses him, eventually settling for marriage with an insurance salesman and a home on the family farm near her beloved father. Dana finds love with a female college professor and success selling her own goat cheese and strawberries at a small farm stand. Although Maynard relies on a central plot contrivance that strains credulity, she consistently brings emotional authenticity to the long arc of her characters' lives and to the joy and loss they experience. A profoundly moving chronicle of the primacy of family connection.--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Two families, the Planks and the Dickersons, are mysteriously entwined in this exquisite novel that centers on decades of life at a New Hampshire farm. Youngest daughters Ruth Plank and Dana Dickerson, born on the same day in the same hospital, take turns narrating the struggles they face as children. Ruth feels a coldness from her mother; Dana is unsettled by her kooky parents constantly uprooting her and her brother Ray. Regardless, the Planks pay a yearly visit to the Dickersons no matter where they've ended up living. As the girls come of age, Ruth takes an interest in art, sex, and Dana's brother, Ray, with whom she later reunites, at Woodstock, in a swirl of drugs and mud. Meanwhile, Dana realizes that her desires are directed toward women and sets off to pursue agricultural studies at a university, where she meets Clarice, an assistant professor. As time goes by, the floundering Plank Farm is in danger of being seized by Ruth's former boyfriend, a man who has had his eye on the land for years. As Ruth and Dana pursue love, contemplate children, and search for home, the truth of what unites their families is finally-at long last-revealed, in this beautifully written book. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
While Maynard's last novel, Labor Day, was delightful and unexpected, the premise of her new title is obvious from the start. Two girls, conceived during a hurricane in rural New Hampshire, born in the same hospital on the same day, grow up not understanding what binds their diametrically opposite families together. The Planks are fourth-generation New England farmers, practical and rooted. The Dickersons drift from one get-rich-quick scheme to another. Ruth Plank, though she adores her hardworking, dependable father, does not fit in-she's artistic and emotional, tall and lithe, while her four sisters are stolid and stocky. Dana Dickerson finds little in common with her nontraditional parents and instead relates more to the goats she raises and the strawberries she plants. Verdict While the connection between the "birthday sisters" ultimately comes as no surprise, Maynard's descriptions of the two women's lives from the 1950s to the present is rich and realistic. Particularly touching is Dana's relationship with her dying lover. Buy for readers who enjoy character development over plot.-Christine Perkins, Bellingham P.L., WA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Rural America cross-fertilizes with Bohemia in a story of tangled family ties.Skillful tale-spinner Maynard (Labor Day, 2009, etc.) turns heavier-handed in her latest, the chronicle of Ruth Plank and Dana Dickerson, born two hours apart in the same hospital in New Hampshire in 1950, whose surnames spell out their families' characters and styles. The Planks, who have farmed their acres for generations, are as solid and dependable as a wooden floor. George and Val Dickerson, on the other hand, are drifters, forever drained and dislocated by George's get-rich-quick schemes. Dreamily creative Ruth can't understand why her mother seems to love her less than her sisters, nor can she quite comprehend the curious friendship between her kindly father and artistic Val Dickerson, whom Ruth also resembles physically. Dana, meanwhile, has always attracted Ruth's mother's attention and has an inexplicable flair for farming. Maynard's neat, credulity-stretching story hints often enough at the possible explanation for her twin cuckoos in the nests, although doesn't spell it out even when Ruth's attraction to Dana's brother Ray and subsequent pregnancy force her parents to intervene. Only as the members of the older generation die do the birthday sisters, whose checkered love lives have run their courses, finally embrace the truth.Simple, sentimental and symmetrical, this is a limited narrative stretched out over novel length.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
