BOOK REVIEW: 'The Sisters Chase' Gives Us a Protagonist Worth Taking the Journey With [PREVIEW]

The Sisters Chase is one of the few books I’ve read that I actually wished were much, much longer. Clocking in at under 300 pages, The Sisters Chase whirls breathlessly through the story of Mary and Hannah Chase (nicknamed Bunny), a pair of sisters left to fend for themselves in the wake of their mother’s death. Tracing their years-long journey along the East Coast and across the country as they search for a place to settle, Sarah Healy’s new novel deftly captures a variety of locales and moods, from the New Jersey beachfront motel where the girls were born, to the swamps of Florida, where Mary takes them on a lark after their departure. Placing their constant roving in the context of storybook Princess tales and quests, the eighteen-year-old Mary determinedly cares for four-year-old Bunny to the best of her ability, even as she breaks promise after promise of stability and stasis.

http://sarahhealybooks.com/the-sisters-chase/

Admittedly, it’s hard to resist comparing every recent charismatic and manipulative female protagonist to Gone Girl’s Amy Dunne (Fates and Furies’ Mathilde Satterwhite is another such example). Mary Chase, the compelling and enigmatic central figure of The Sisters Chase, has many of the qualities that made Amy (and Mathilde) such a memorable character—calculating and cold, yet able to perfectly perform soft, pliant femininity; and above all, willing to lie, steal, cheat, and seduce her way into getting what she wants. Yet the key difference that sets Mary apart from women like Amy and Mathilde is the purely altruistic core to nearly all of her actions: with one exception, every cruel move and betrayal Mary makes is to provide for and protect Bunny...

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