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The Orphan Sisters by Shirley Dickson

**SPOILERS BE HERE**

I read this book in about two days flat after borrowing it from my mom. It's pretty much the epitome of an easy read; it was extremely easy to consume and everything was fairly predictable. I enjoyed it well enough but the "easy read" detracted from it. I didn't like that everything was predictable—I was pretty sure from the outset that the mystery woman in the prologue wasn't Etty's mother. I knew Dorothy was going to die at some point, as was Laurie, so one of the children in the prologue would be there's. I did think one of the children was going to be May's son, so at least that didn't happen! 

The characters were pretty flat. I don't feel like anyone really experienced any growth, and if they did, it felt forced. I don't know if this is considered a romance novel, but if it is, I wasn't feeling it. Trevor and Etty seemed kind of toxic together, and I don't think they should have stayed together. Good on them for pushing through their very major issues, but it wasn't very believable. I suppose they were different times, but it could have been written more believably instead of shoehorned in. There were also some weird time jumps. Some chapters were only days apart, but then randomly in the middle of another chapter, six months passes without a word. 

I would have been interested in hearing more about the war. It really seemed like a plot device to kill off people. Give me more information on what they're doing in the factories, and how the women coped with working and keeping house while the men were away! More information on the shelters and raids would have been interesting, too—I could never really picture the shelter well. How far from the house was it? It seemed like everyone had their own private shelter or share with just a neighbor or two; was that normal? Maybe I just have it in my head that everywhere was like London with massive shelters in the Underground that people went to, which is also probably inaccurate. It would have been nice to hear more about how the war at large, too, and how it affected more of the side characters instead of just Etty and Dorothy. 

This book wasn't bad by any means; it just left me wishing it was more fleshed out and exciting. 

Completed: 22 December 2020
Rating: 3/5
Recommend: Sure, if you want something quick and easy

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