You Were Always Mom's Favorite!: Sisters in Conversation Throughout Their Lives

I enjoyed You Just Don’t Understand: Men and Women in Conversation and know of Tannen’s other books, so was interested to see that she has sliced her studies of conversation yet another way here -- along sisterly lines in You Were Always Mom’s Favorite!

It’s an interesting slice since, as

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Tannen writes, “A sister is like yourself in a different movie, a movie that stars you in a different life.” She posits that these lives revolve around a subset of sibling rivalry where sisters connect and compete in attempts to align themselves for parental love. She supports that not through strictly scientific data but rather social anecdotes -- examples pulled from literature, pop culture, and her own interviews. It’s notable that I’ve recently read two other books that incorporate “everyman” quotes; they were clumsy in insertion and vacuous in content and frankly spoiled the works. But here, Tannen knows expertly when to summarize someone’s comments, and when instead to roll seamlessly into a spot-on and memorable quote.

A couple quibbles. First, contrary to the subtitle (Sisters in Conversation Throughout Their Lives), this book is not much about conversation. Instead, it's primarily about psychology and exploring the underlying family roles and dynamics that sometimes bubble up into verbal and nonverbal communications.

Second, Tannen leaves no stone unturned, no shade of gray unexamined. At one point, she refers to the 17 single-spaced pages of research notes she'd accumulated for one topic; I think she included every one of them in this book -- first via a complete, fully formed example, then appended with a summarizing paragraph. The wordiness and repetition grew tedious, and tolerable in doses of at most a chapter at a time. I actually think an audio version would be a better fit for Tannen’s smooth, conversational (!) style, and where the repetition might feel reinforcing rather than frustrating.

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I had hoped for more from Deborah Tannen's latest foray into the hidden messages we convey in conversation. While I enjoy Tannen's ideas and writing style, I found this book disorganized; I had to keept rechecking the table of contents to see which section I was reading. Was it about older sisters?

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Wait, then why does she keep talking about younger sisters? With each new section, I hoped for a new, organized set of insights; instead it seemed like she kept saying the same things over and over. I came away from the book feeling that there really was nothing much to say about sisters in conversation that couldn't be said of practically anyone in conversation.

I did like the stories, though. My favorite was the younger sister who heard about her brother-in-law's sudden death and called her sister: "Dad told me about Greg. *pause* Is this a bad time to tell you what's going on in MY life?" Haha, well, YES.

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Helpful insights into the relationship between sisters, demonstrated for the most part by language, which is Tannen's metier. The style is easy and confidential, like a conversation over dinner, but a little repetitive. Nevertheless, I think it might help my relationship with my sister.