Forgotten Sisters by Cynthia Pelayo

This is my third time reading Pelayo’s work, and the first time I’ve been disappointed. Children of Chicago was a dark, masterful retelling of the Pied Piper, and The Shoemaker’s Magician is another unsettling tale based on the urban legend of a lost movie and Greek mythology. Forgotten Sisters, drew me in with the promise of a ghostly retelling of The Little Mermaid, and it sort of is.
This book, like Pelayo’s other Chicago stories, does not follow the plot of the original tale beat for beat. Instead, she pulls characters and themes from the story and fits them to her own story. Anna, the main character, has an obsession with the tale of the Little Mermaid and identifies heavily with Ariel. She lives in her family home with her sister, Jennie. Their parents drowned in the nearby Chicago River, leaving the two girls adrift in their grief. Because of her trauma, and Jennie’s complicated moods, Anna cannot leave her home and feels trapped there, much like Ariel did. Both long for love and freedom.
Mermaids are water creatures, and this book is drenched in water. From the Chicago River claiming the lives of young men, to the dripping sound that echoes through the house, and even the overall tone, the book is soaked. Pelayo’s prose has a dreamy, fluid quality to it that mimics the feeling of being underwater.
The dreamy feeling worked at first, but over the course of the novel, it bogged down the story for me. Much of the plot stalls around the everyday activities of the sisters. Anna spends her days renovating the house and telling ghost stories on her podcast. Jennie prefers to go for long walks and wander about the house complaining about everything.
And that’s really my issue. Jennie (and Anna to some extent) does not speak like a normal person. Her dialogue is poetic, at times almost Shakespearean, and it quickly grew tiresome. Jennie likes to rant about the integrity of the house, finding true love, and to abuse her sister. Anna’s rambling naivete also wore on me. I listened to the audio version, and while I feel that the narrator did her best, every time Jennie spoke, I found myself reaching for the skip button.
Interspersed throughout the novel are the welcome, but few, interjections by Kowalski, a detective investigating the drownings. His chapters are refreshing and have the effect of coming up for air after being pulled down into the depths by Anna and Jennie.
As for the mystery aspect, I have mixed feelings. I guessed the killer almost immediately, but not all of the nuances and there were a few surprises at the end.
Stylistically, this is a well written novel. I prefer a faster pace or more darkness to keep the tension going. While I didn’t love this one, I still intend to keep reading through Pelayo’s Chicago series and look forward to the next installment.
Thanks for reading!
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