Matthew's Reviews > The Sisters Brothers

This was an entertaining little western story. A collection of anecdotes chronicling the notorious Sisters Brothers as they journey West to complete a job in Gold Rush era California. It has all the elements you might expect in a western – gunfights, crazy prospectors, horses, grimy locales, outlaws, snake oil salesmen, women of the night, etc. – delivered in a sometimes dark, sometime humorous, sometimes thought-provoking fashion.

I really enjoyed the beginning of the book. The dialogue was quick and witty. The story moved a long at a decent clip. Lots of different things were happening to keep me engaged. My only complaint taking this from a 5 star down to a 4 is that it kind of bogged down about 2/3 of the way through. Not that it got bad, it was just as if I was racing my horse down a good quality trail and then it suddenly started to pour rain and the path quickly became a sticky quagmire that required some extra effort to push through. I would have liked to see it end at the same pace that it had begun.

My favorite element of the story was the character building of the Sisters Brothers. Each of them unique in their own way, but together, a force to be reckoned with. Eli: attempting to lose weight to impress the ladies and interested in new-fangled technology like tooth brushing. Charlie the more ruthless and deadlier of the two – trying to maintain his badassness while dealing with alcoholism and the misadventures of his not quite so focused brother. But, again, their reputation precedes them and, while we as the reader see the true, intricate nature of the brothers, when they walk into a bar and people find out that these are the infamous Sisters Brothers, the temperature drops, and people start diving behind the bar and out the window!

If you like westerns, give this one a try. While it has shades of other westerns I have read, it is definitely unique.