Book: The Faraday Girls

Author: Monica Mcinerney

Review: The Faraday Girls are five sisters.  They are: Juliet, the surrogate mother; Miranda, the drama queen; Eliza, the sports trainer; Sadie, the "runt of the litter"; Clementine, the scientist.  The youngest, Clementine, finds herself pregnant at seventeen.  She takes a very mature view that the father will probably not be involved and that she can still put herself throught school and raise a child.  Her sisters make a promise to help her until Maggie is five.  The sisters start to flag after a few months, and Clementine is overwhelmed.  Sadie, who is not doing well at university, volunteers to become the nanny.  This causes some bitterness between Sadie and Clementine.  When Maggie turns five, all of the sisters start to move away to jobs or get married, except Sadie.  In a panic, Sadie kidnaps Maggie briefly.  Maggie is reunited with her mother and grandfather, but Sadie becomes an outcast.  It is revealed that their deceased mother, was not the saint their father makes her out to be, and in fact hated Sadie.  Twenty years later, Maggie is sent to find Sadie. 

I was suprised that this book did not have a storybook ending, and the characters were very realistic.