Tag: dual timelines

The Singer Sisters by Sarah Seltzer

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I have noticed an uptick in historical fiction about music bands, something that I attribute to the popularity of Daisy Jones & The Six, both the book and television show. The latest band historical fiction hitting the new shelves is The Singer Sisters by Sarah Seltzer. This dual timeline follows Emma Cantor in 1996 and her mother Judie in the 1960s.

Emma is an alt-rocker desperate to make her name known on tour. She wants a record deal, but also struggles with performing against the legacy of the other famous singers in her family: her mother, aunt, and father(and her brother a little bit). Her mother Judie knows how hard it is to be on the road and wants to save Emma the heartbreak that path will bring, but Emma is determined to figure things out on her own, so she ignores her mother’s advice and heads out singing.

Flashback to the 1960s. Judie and her sister, Sylvia, want to have their own musical careers without their parents’ interventions. Eventually the two, with help from some others, become the famous Singer Sisters, a folk band that traveled, played, and wrote music everywhere.

Jodie and Emma’s relationships with each other and other members of their family and friend group shift throughout the years. Betrayals abound, family secrets are revealed, and loyalties are tested. While the premise of this book was great, I found myself not connecting to the characters as much as I expected. I finished The Singer Sisters because I wanted to see how each character ended up and was slightly invested, but there wasn’t much that pulled me in. Hopefully it’s a better experience for you all!

Online Reading Challenge – December Wrap-Up

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Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

It’s the final month of the 2024 Online Reading Challenge! How did your reading go this month? Did you read something that was dual timelines that you enjoyed? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. Without meaning to, I also read a couple other dual timeline books, but The Great Believers was the best of those recent reads.

Splitting between 1985 Chicago and 2015 Paris, Rebecca Makkai weaves these two timelines into a cohesive story that pulls at the lives of many individuals across time and space. Yale Tishman is working as the developmental director for an art gallery in 1985 Chicago. He is working hard to bring a collection of 1920s paintings in as a gift to the gallery, but egos both inside the gallery and outside the gallery are affecting his ability to secure this gift. As Yale’s professional life takes off, his personal life is fracturing. The AIDS epidemic is destroying the lives of people around him. His friends are dying one by one, and after the funeral of his friend Nico, the virus starts to come closer to Yale than ever before. Yale turns to Nico’s little sister, Fiona, for help, guidance, and solidarity.

Flash forward to 2015 and Fiona is a wreck. She lost contact with her daughter Claire years ago, but a friend recently sent her a video of who she thinks is Claire on a bridge in Pairs. Determined to rescue Claire from the cult she disappeared into, Fiona heads to Paris. Once arrived, she stays with an old friend who documented the Chicago AIDS crisis, forcing Fiona to reckon with the feelings, emotions, and actions that the crisis thrust onto her life all those years ago. Her time spent in Paris is time spent examining her past and all the ways AIDS changed her life and her relationship with those around her, specifically her daughter.

Makkai expertly weaves Yale’s life from 1985 with Fiona in 2015, diving back and forth between the two, teasing just enough information from one to help inform the other and vice versa. What set this book apart for me was the narrator and his ability to pull me into the story from the start. While the timelines were inextricably linked together, the author still gave equal importance to both places in time, while also acknowledging how the past impacts the present both directly and indirectly.

In January, we’ll be starting the 2025 Online Reading Challenge with a brand new theme! I can’t wait to share this with you.

Online Reading Challenge – December

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Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge searches for materials that have dual timelines. Our main title for December is The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

A dazzling novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris

In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister.

Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster. – Penguin Books

Looking for some other books that are dual timelines? Try any of the following.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!