I See You Everywhere by Julia Glass

I saw this book everywhere so I put it on my reading list. I enjoyed Glass’ previous book, Three Junes, a few years ago. This book definitely held my attention too.

The book is about a pair of sisters over many years of adulthood. It was very well-written and well-constructed. In structure, it demonstrated what Olive Kittridge could have been: each chapter could stand alone as a short story, and the story is not continuous - the chapters are separated from each other by several years. Within each chapter the sisters switch off telling the story in small pieces. This meant that Glass had to write in two voices very clearly (which she did) and the reader had to pay attention (which I did).

The sisters face very different partners, careers, and parts of the country throughout the book. There’s no single story arc, rather an examination of a sisterhood that survives through oscillating intimacy and anger.

The best part of this book was its scope – Glass was courageous to try and capture such a large and complex relationship without a continuous time scale without the reader feeling like it was choppy.