Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
A lyrical and thought provoking novel perfect for book clubs, The Orphan Sister by Gwendolyn Gross questions the intricacies of nature and nurture, and the exact shape of sisterly love...
Clementine Lord is not an orphan. She just feels like one sometimes. One of triplets, a quirk of nature left her the odd one out. Odette and Olivia are identical; Clementine is a singleton. Biologically speaking, she came from her own egg. Practically speaking, she never quite left it. Then Clementine's father--a pediatric neurologist who is an expert on children's brains, but clueless when it comes to his own daughters--disappears, and his choices, both past and present, force the family dynamics to change at last. As the three sisters struggle to make sense of it, their mother must emerge from the greenhouse and leave the flowers that have long been the focus of her warmth and nurturing.
For Clementine, the next step means retracing the winding route that led her to this very moment: to understand her father's betrayal, the tragedy of her first lost love, her family's divisions, and her best friend Eli's sudden romantic interest. Most of all, she may finally have found the voice with which to share the inside story of being the odd sister out...
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
Talk about sibling rivalry! Narrator Clementine Lord, one of a set of triplets, is the odd girl out. Odette and Olivia, aka the Os, came from the same egg dividing, but Clementine was the extra egg in the womb. As a child, she never got the same treatment from their father as did her sisters, and Clementine still feels like she doesn't match with her siblings. She rebels by attending a non-Ivy League college and deciding to attend veterinary school instead of medical school. Her sisters now are both married, doctors in practice together as well as pregnant simultaneously. When their father, a brain surgeon, disappears, Clementine reexamines her life through her memories of her first love and her family's interactions. Her father's eventual return reveals a dark secret that will change Clementine and all the Lords. Verdict Readers who enjoy a well-written novel about complex family relationships will want to read Gross's (The Other Mother) latest.-Kristen Stewart, Brazoria Cty. Lib. Syst., Pearland, TX (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Review
A trio of sisters navigates familial quirks and tragedy in Gross's emotionally charged fourth novel (after The Other Mother). Though Odette, Olivia, and Clementine have always shared a special bond as triplets, Clementine-the narrator and nonidentical triplet sibling to identical twins, has often felt like the third wheel. It doesn't help matters that, as they approach 30, Odette and Olivia are Harvard grads, sharing a medical practice, happily married, and expecting babies, while Clementine is living in her parents' carriage house. The sisterly bond is further strained when their father disappears and Olivia claims to know the dark secret that compelled him to take off, but she refuses to share anything more than her anger. As Clementine searches for clues, she touches on the secret that will redefine the sisters' identity, confronts her unresolved anger toward her father, and comes to terms with the long-ago death of her first love. Gross brings abundant personality to the sisters' interactions as they move through a fairly humdrum story of family secrets. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Clementine was the odd triplet, fraternal, while her sisters Odette and Olivia were identical. The Os, married and both doctors, are now concurrently pregnant, while Clementine is still struggling with the loss of her college love and hoping to find her calling in veterinary school. When their father disappears just before Odette goes into labor, secrets come out that will change their family forever. It seems that their father had another wife and child, and managed to escape for clandestine visits throughout the years, even while carefully directing every aspect of the triplets' and their mother's lives. This revelation is what finally frees Clementine from her own past and allows her to love again. Gross' use of shifting time frames can render the novel stilted in spots, but Clementine is an unusual and endearing narrator who offers snippets of childhood and college memories in counterpoint to present-day moments until a satisfying ending ties everything together.--Walker, Aleksandr. Copyright 2010 Booklist
Kirkus Book Review
The youngest of triplet sisters asserts her identity in Gross' fourth novel (The Other Mother, 2007, etc.).Although all three girls are very close, Clementine's minutes-older sisters Odette and Olivia are identically beautiful and communicate with a telepathy Clementine, the odd sister out, can never quite match. Odette and Olivia are also both Harvard-educated, happily married doctors and currently pregnant. In contrast, Clementine graduated belatedly from Oberlin (barely acceptable to her high-achieving family) and is now living in her parents' garage apartment in Princeton while applying to vet schools. She is also single, not yet over the drowning death of her college boyfriend Cameron. Then the triplets' highly regarded, much sought-after neurosurgeon father doesn't show up for his rounds one day and remains missing for more than a week. Dr. Lord has been a frequently absent but authoritative, demanding and loving ber-dad who has left the day-to-day running of the family to Clementine's mother, an accomplished and highly educated woman who gave up her career to care for him and the girls. When it becomes apparent that Dr. Lord has told only Olivia where he is, schisms begin to divide the triplets and their mother in new ways. Olivia and Odette no longer seem quite as much alike or united. Their mother's utter faith in her husband begins to crack. And Clementine realizes that her friendship with Cameron's roommate Eli, who is doing graduate work in Princeton, is deeper and perhaps less platonic than she's tried to believe. Dr. Lord's secret is anticlimactic. But the novel is less concerned with the vaguely out-of-sync details of Dr. Lord's crimes than with the coming-into-selfhood of Clementine.At its best, the novel delves into the sister relationships, but the triplet hook only goes so far to mitigate the annoying entitlement of the characters and the heavy-handed if familiar plot.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.