Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters by Natalie Standiford
Hardcover, 320 Pages
2010, Scholastic Press
ISBN: 9780545107105
Synopsis
The Sullivan sisters have a big problem. On Christmas Day their rich and imperious grandmother gathers the family and announces that she will soon die . . .and has cut the entire family out of her will. Since she is the source of almost all their income, this means they will soon be penniless.
Someone in the family has offended her deeply. If that person comes forward with a confession of her (or his) crime, submitted in writing to her lawyer by New Year's Day, she will reinstate the family in her will. Or at least consider it.
And so the confessions begin....
Review
I think I expected Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters to be a little more edgy and scandalous than it ended up being. When the matriarch of a rich family demands confessions of wrong-doings in order for the family to stay in her will, three sisters write her letters admitting everything that their grandmother may have taken offense to. One fell in love, one told family secrets, one believed herself to be immortal, but none seemed even remotely bad, especially in today's world.
The family dynamics of Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters was the aspect of the book that kept me interested. The way the siblings interacted with each other, their parents and the grandmother was entertaining and heartfelt. I wish the book focused a little more on the entire family, especially the brothers, rather than keeping the focus solely on the girls and their supposed crimes.
Confessions from rich teenage girls should have been worse. These were truly good girls who made everyday decisions that the grandmother frowned upon. The ending, in which the grandmother reads the confessions and announces whether or not she has been satisfied was kind of a letdown. She, as evil as she's made out to be, reveals which crime it was that set her off in the first place and it's surprising in it's ridiculous nature.
This is a nice, sweet novel and would have been great if that's what readers are expecting when they pick the book up. Unfortunately, the way the book description makes it sound, Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters should have contained shocking revelations of some sort. I expected something on par with the Gossip Girl novels, and got something far more inspirational and wholesome instead.
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