Play Book Tag discussion

I enjoyed Dilloway’s How to be an American Housewife, so was keen to read Sisters of Heart and Snow. It tells two stories in alternating timelines. One is of a family in southern California with two grown sisters, a mail-order-bride mother from Japan, and an arrogant, misogynistic father incapable of love. We’re enticed with promises of a deep family secret, which the mother, with increasing dementia, can no longer reveal. The other story line is based on an historical (12th century) Japanese tale of a great female warrior and her co-wife. The relationship between these two women mirrors, but only faintly, some of the relationship struggles of the California sisters. I didn’t enjoy the historical story line and was frankly confused by several very similar names (I suppose the author wanted to keep them accurate) and put off by grisly descriptions of battles. Meanwhile, the dysfunctional California family just didn’t move me as I think it was intended to -- the sisters too immature, the mother too passive and the father too nasty to quite be credible. I know this is subjective and the book received many good reviews, but it didn’t work well for me. The deep family secret left me disappointed too.