Two sisters share the surprising highs and cringe-worthy lows of social media fame, when their most private thoughts become incredibly public in this fresh and funny debut novel.

Sisters Cassie and Sid Sunday have not done a bang-up job of keeping in touch. In their defense, it hasn’t been easy: life veered in sharply different directions for the once-close sisters. Today, beautiful and big-hearted Sid lives an expat’s life of leisure in far-off Singapore, while harried, iPhone-clutching Cassie can’t seem to make it work as a wife and a mom to twin toddlers in Manhattan.

It doesn’t help that Sid spurns all social media while Cassie is addicted to Facebook. So when Sid issues a challenge to reconnect the old-fashioned way—through real, handwritten letters—Cassie figures, why not?

The experiment exceeds both of their expectations, and the letters become a kind of mutual confessional that have real and soul-satisfying effects. And they just might have the power to help Cassie save her marriage, and give Sid the strength to get her life back on track.

But first, one of Cassie’s infamous lapses in judgment comes back to bite her, and all of the letters wind up the one place you’d never, ever want to see them: the Internet…

As I delved into this book, I found myself torn between being completely enthralled and completely annoyed. As much as I enjoyed the letters between Cassie and Sid, I found the constant flip flop between the present and the past to be frustrating. While I appreciate an author who wishes to give you a full story, all of Cassie’s memories started to blur together and became a bit of a bore. If this was an attempt to make Cassie a more likable character, than I’m sorry to say it failed. If anything I felt it made Cassie feel fake. Her constant “love and admiration” while obviously being completely jealous of her older sister bit begins to wear thin and I left the book not completely convinced that these two sisters had anything in common. In fact, I wasn’t convinced they even liked one another.

In truth, this story could have worked better if they had been just friends, rather than sisters. I suppose that seems odd to say, but the truth is the story would have felt more realistic. Also, can I just say Cassie is a selfish, lazy brat? Yes, I know motherhood is hard and I’ve struggled with feeling trapped within the walls of your house, but you learn to get over it. But not Cassie. Instead she’s completely unfair to her husband and completely cut off (emotionally) from her own children. She’s more invested in everyone’s Facebook feeds, than her own family. Hell, if someone knew as much about their Facebook friends as Cassie does, I would say they have an unhealthy addiction with the social media app. Not only can she tell you where everyone lives and what their jobs are, but she can also name all of their kids… I can only name a handful of the kids a few of my Facebook friends have and that’s only because we talked a lot when the kids were little or I’ve actually met the kids in person. But Cassie puts everyone to shame… I’m even willing to bet she can tell you what everyone had for dinner the night before. On top of that, she spends a lot of the book leaving the kids with someone else. It’s clear she’s a lonely and lost woman, but I seriously was beginning to think she might be mentally disturbed, because sometimes she acts like she’s suffering from postpartum depression and at other times, she comes off as nearly manic.

Also, for someone who supposed worked professionally online and even had experienced with a blog, Cassie is quite daft. She swears she meant for the letters to remain private on their blog, but she set up a blog. Not only did she sign up for one, but she paid for it. She bought a domain for it and she spent time making sure it was pleasing to look at… um… this is just screaming obvious that this blog was going to go viral. The fact she’s surprised when it gets leaked, is laughable at best.

And for my final complaint, for someone who doesn’t have enough money for groceries, Cassie wastes a ton of money. On a nanny they supposedly can’t afford. Thousands of dollars on clothes. Hundreds of dollars on make up. At one point, I thought I was reading Confessions of a Shopaholic. After all, this woman spends a ton of money.

Rating