The relationship between sisters is unlike any other. They make you laugh, drive you crazy, and are inextricably connected to you. From classics to contemporary novels, sisterhood has long been a theme of exploration in literature. Here are some iconic and astounding portrayals of sisters in all their intricacies and varieties.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
No round-up of iconic literary sisters is complete without Louisa May Alcott’s classic masterpiece Little Women. The novel follows the lives of the vastly different but extremely close-knit March sisters. There is the beautiful and sometimes traditional Meg, the subversive storyteller Jo, the gentle and musical Beth, and the ambitious and artistic Amy. Throughout girlhood to womanhood, they each struggle with growing up, falling in love, and finding their place in a changing world.
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
The title of Jane Austen’s first published novel is consistent with the polarity between the two sisters within it. Elinor and Marianne have distinct personalities that shape how they seek and experience love. While the eldest and more reserved Elinor tries to conceal the emotional pangs of love’s disappointment, the younger Marianne wholeheartedly throws her entire being into love with the charismatic John Willoughby. Through both sisters’ tumultuous romantic entanglements, they discover that to find love in their complicated society, they must find some middle ground between sense and sensibility.
Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors
A recent release, this piece of literary fiction explores the complex relationship among sisterhood, grief, and self-identity. After their fourth sister passed, the Blue sisters went their separate and vastly different ways. We have a former heroin addict, now a lawyer, an ex-boxer working as a bouncer, and a party-girl model trying to change her ways. But when their mother tries to sell the apartment they grew up in, their shared past brings them together to save it.
Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary
This was THE sisterhood novel of my youth. Beezus and Ramona is the first installment in Beverly Cleary’s middle-grade series that candidly explores the relationship between older and younger sisters. The eldest Quimby sister, Beezus, finds her younger sister, Ramona, the most annoying one in the world. She does nothing but cause trouble and serve as a nuisance. Worst of all, the little troublemaker seems to hog all the attention. As Beezus assumes more responsibility in caring for Ramona, she must grapple with her feelings towards her younger sister.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennet
The Vignes sisters aren’t just siblings; they are identical twins. They spent their upbringing together in the black community of their small southern town, but that all changed when they ran away. Now, their lives are different in every capacity. They have their families, communities, and separate racial identities. One sister has returned to their small black community, but the other now passes for white and has begun a life completely separate from her past. However, their fates are much more entwined than they think, especially when, years later, their respective daughters find themselves untied.
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
As part of the witchy Owens family, sisters Gillian and Sally have become scapegoats for every weird and bad thing in their small town. The girls never exactly fit in, constantly being excluded, gawked at, and teased. They want nothing more than to leave their lives behind. As grown-ups, they each do so in separate ways. One gets married, and the other runs away. As they escape their past, they also grow apart. But the sisters can’t stay away from each other for long, their magical bonds of sisterhood constantly pulling them back together.
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
To close out this list, it only feels fitting to bring it back to Little Women, a novel of immense influence in Napolitano’s Hello Beautiful. William Waters grew up in a household far from picture-perfect. It echoed with grief and silence, devoid of love. So when he’s offered a basketball scholarship for a far-away college, he jumps at the chance.
There, he meets Julia Padavano, a vibrant and driven young woman from a family that is William’s opposite. Julia and her three sisters are thick as thieves. There is the bookish and renegade Sylvie, the artistic Cecelia, and the patient and caring Emeline. Sound familiar? As Julia’s boyfriend, the Padavanos welcome William into their spirited and loving family with open arms. However, William’s dark past begins to intrude on the present, threatening his relationship with Julia and the relationship between the sisters.
From inseparability to estrangement, sisterhood encompasses a myriad of complex relationships. These novels each unpack the sibling bond unlike anything else. Coco Mellors sums it up perfectly in Blue Sisters:
“A sister is not a friend. Who can explain the urge to take a relationship as primal and complex as a sibling and reduce it to something as replaceable, as banal as a friend? Yet this status is used again and again to connote the highest intimacy. True sisterhood is not the same as friendship. You don’t choose each other and there is no furtive period of getting to know each other. You are a part of each other, right from the start. Look at an umbilical cord—tough, sinuous, unlovely, yet essential—and compare it to a friendship bracelet of brightly woven thread. That is the difference between a sister and a friend.”
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