BOOK REVIEW: A Soft Place To Land

The relationship between sisters can be complicated. What can draw them close can sometimes be the same thing that tears them apart. Susan Rebecca White explores these conflicts between two sisters, Ruthie and Julia, in A SOFT PLACE TO LAND.

Ruthie was in seventh grade and Julia was a sophomore in high school when their parents were killed in a plane crash. The girls’ parents expected to live forever or at least until the girls were grown. As a result, following their parents’ death, the girls are separated. Ruthie goes to live across the country in San Francisco with her father’s sister and her husband. Julia goes to live with her natural father who does not know her and a stepmother who does not want her.

In San Francisco Ruthie is raised by an aunt and uncle who accept and love her. She has the opportunities to meet people and to try foods and adventures that were not possible back in Atlanta. When it is time for college, she fits in with the campus crowd at Berkeley.

Things are almost the complete opposite for Julia. Her stepmother is very strict and not prepared to have her husband’s daughter to another woman in the house. Julia’s grief causes so much resentment and anger that she ends up in a rehabilitation facility run by her stepmother’s fundamentalist church.

The devotion and loyalty between the two sisters is challenged again and again. Julia can not help but be jealous of Ruthie’s lifestyle and an incident during her visit to Berkeley causes Ruthie to feel betrayed.

The author, Susan Rebecca White, seems to understand the dynamics of family life, whether it is stepparents or an aunt and uncle who are able to raise a child on love alone. She is able to break through the stereotypes that you would expect and she gives us flawed humans that we can care about.

White uses three different plane accidents to help us keep track of time and to move the story along. The first, of course, is the plane accident that killed the girls’ parents, but the Twin Tower incident and the crashing of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River also play a part. This adds much to the “ real feel” of the story.

I enjoyed this book. It is a story that women who have a sister will be able to relate to and women who never had one wish that they did.