Reviews

The Sisterhood by Katherine Bradley

jmccall's review

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

A very thought provoking book!

ed_moore's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.25

‘The Sisterhood’ was made out to be the feminist retelling of 1984, and whilst the element of the rebel group ‘The Sisterhood’ was a nice introduction, a real resistance as oppose to the manufactured brotherhood in Orwell’s source material, that was the only part that lived up. I never expected ‘The Sisterhood’ to match ‘1984’ as Orwell’s masterpiece is my unparalleled favourite book and I can’t foresee much ever matching it, but I didn’t expect it to disappoint quite so much. Bradley set out to recognise some of the flaws in 1984, such as the controversiality of Winston and lack of Julia’ s depth of the character, but in doing so made Julia arguably more dislikable than Winston, made every effort to limit Winston’s role in the story and appear solely in a negative light, and in creating Julia’s identity tore apart the message of the original dystopian, that inevitable threat of totalitarianism and the sufferings of the proletariat, Winston and Julia being among the everyman beneath the oppression of the totalitarian force. Bradley had her own vision of Julia which was the point of her retelling, but I felt this vision undermined Orwell and his purpose, as to bring it to light she had to tell her own story, the aspects of the original plot of ‘1984’ only appearing in as small a section as possible just so the story made sense in the original dystopian context, and as a justification for Bradley to use Orwell’s world building and characters. Not to mention some elements to the original text make no sense as the scenes are so limited that included references such as the rhyme ’The bells of saint Clements’ that is such a powerful collection of lyric in ‘1984’ are inserted in in their moment most powerful with no background or prior explanation in ‘The Sisterhood’, making their impact worthless. Moving away from my criticisms relating to the plot and source material, Bradley’s writing was also juvenile, it didn’t tear you apart in the areas where Orwell set the plot up to be most impactful, and her writing, descriptions and most characters were flat. I pity anyone who read this before reading ‘1984’ for some reason, as it has massacred such an important story and torn all meaning out of it. I recognise my review of this was scathing and Bradley was trying something different, though I really don’t think it worked and maybe someone who regards ‘1984’ so highly is not the person to trust to give an unbiased opinion on this book. I would however be interested to read the other 1984 retelling that came out recently ‘Julia’, for the sake of comparison.

teh_niarr's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

ren_d's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

rayne31's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

egibson87's review against another edition

dark sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

whatvictoriaread's review

dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

rosiefrog's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

shelves_by_sim's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

 Nobody really remembers when, but once, long ago, the place where Julia lives used to be called Great Britain. And now? Well, everything is different now. Oceania is a destitute land run by Ingsoc, where there are three tiers of categorized people. The Inner Party - the people with the privilege of education, of luxury, of thought and privacy - the Outer Party and the Proles.

Big Brother is always watching. In a time where everyone is so indoctrinated by the presense of Big Brother, where they accept that they are constantly under surveillance, where they praise Big Brother for his kindness, where they love him, where they devote their lives to him, where the give up their family members for him, he doesn't even exist. He is the voice on the telescreens, the face on posters and yet he is a persona. An illusion. A ghost.

But in this world where having your own opinion is a crime, where the only emotion allowed is love for Big Brother and hate for Oceania's enemies, Outer Party Julia and the other members of The Sisterhood do whatever they can to fight for a free future. Hoping that she found a member of another rebel group - The Brotherhood, Julia sets out to gain information that will finally help then take down Big Brother. But no matter how careful she is, she is always being watched - like everyone else. But she has a weapon, her true identity, which might be the only thing she can use to take down Ingsoc or might be her downfall.

My thoughts:
This book was riveting, haunting, exceptionally well-written, terrifying and absolutely fantastic. Not only was the story brilliant from the beginning, the entire book was so metaphoric it made my hair rise! Julia's thought process was so cutthroat and straight to the point. The story was the right amount of intriguing, captivating and utterly horrific. The author wrote at the end that she hoped George Orwell would have approved and I think he certainly would have. The characters! The plot twists! The hope! The shock! The horror!! I absolutely loved the read, I don't read much dystopian but this book was phenomenal. 

galaxy_o_honey's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes

5.0