The Sisters
A Novel
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3.6 • 17 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2025
Longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction
One of The New Yorker's 24 Essential Reads of 2025
One of Publishers Weekly's Ten Best Books of 2025
Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize and the Andrew Carnegie Medal
Named a most anticipated book by Vulture | The Boston Globe
One of the BBC’s 10 Best Books of the Summer | A Times (London) Best Book of the Year
“One gawps . . . at its breadth and ambition. [The Sisters is] a transnational tour de force.” —Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times Book Review
“One of this summer’s most buzzed-about novels.” —Nilanjana Roy, Financial Times
“A classic story about sibling rivalry . . . One of the best novels I've ever read about the complexities of mixed heritage.” —Fredrik Backman, The New Yorker
“[The Sisters] generates every kind of heat . . . If you welcome this novel into your mind, it will warm and transform you.” —Tess Gunty, National Book Award–winning author of The Rabbit Hutch
“Astonishing . . . Every character—every sentence—is startlingly, indubitably alive.” —Katie Kitamura, author of Audition and Intimacies
An addictively entertaining family saga by a National Book Award finalist.
Meet the Mikkola sisters: Ina, Evelyn, and Anastasia. Their mother is a Tunisian carpet seller, their father a mysterious Swede who left them when they were young. Ina is tall, serious, a compulsive organizer. Evelyn is dreamy, magnetic, a smooth talker. And Anastasia is moody, chaotic, a shape-shifting presence, quick to anger.
Ina meets her future husband when she’s dragged to a New Year’s rave by her sisters, only to suffer the ultimate betrayal. Evelyn drifts through life before embarking on a wild career as an actress. And Anastasia runs off to Tunisia, where she falls in love with a woman who, years later, will transform her life.
Following the sisters from afar is Jonas, the son of a Swedish mother and a Tunisian father. Over the course of three decades, his life intersects with the sisters, from a chance encounter in Tunis to the scene of a fighter jet crash in Stockholm. When Evelyn disappears on a trip to New York, Jonas manages to track her down—and helps her to break the curse that has been looming over the Mikkolas for decades. In the process, a shocking revelation changes everything about who they think they are.
Narrated in six parts, each spanning a period ranging from a year to a day to a single minute, Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s The Sisters is a big, vivid family saga of the highest order—an addictively entertaining tour de force.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Khemiri (The Family Clause) follows three sisters and their childhood friend, a fellow Swedish Tunisian named Jonas, over decades in this wondrous novel. The Mikkola girls' distinct personalities are evident from the opening scene of a Y2K New Year's Eve party: Ina, the eldest at 24, is the responsible one; Evelyn, 21, is a dimpled beauty; and Anastasia, 19, is "the fun sister, the crazy sister, the ‘I have something in my sock, let's sneak into the bathroom and snort it' sister." Their mother, a carpet seller from Tunisia, was abandoned by her Swedish husband, and the girls' fierce devotion to one another is tested as they enter middle age. Ina gets married and has children, while Anastasia, an artist who went off to Tunisia and fell in love with a woman, returns to become a successful advertising executive. Meanwhile, Evelyn drifts until she finds her passion as an actor. Jonas, a writer, grew up next door to the Mikkolas and has nursed an obsession with Evelyn since childhood, one that sustains his deep and concentrated interest in the family. Blending humor and pathos, Khemiri perfectly encapsulates the push and pull of living in two different and sometimes dueling cultures. It's a staggering achievement. Agents: Sarah Chalfant and Jackie Ko, Wylie Agency.
Customer Reviews
Well written but missing something….
This is certainly well written enough to make it move quickly and hold you for the first half, but starts to become tedious and drag from there. It’s like watching a series of events play out incident of your eyes with little emotional attachment, making the conclusion less than satisfying. Good attempt, it not great.