IN HER SHOES By Jennifer Weiner Pocket Books January 2003 ISBN # 0-7434-1566-3 {Click here to buy this book} Rose and Maggie Feller are sisters. Rose is the good sister with a law degree, a career and swank apartment. Maggie is the

Rose, for all her success, is still looking for Mr Right. She thinks she's found him in one of the firms partners where she works, even though relationships with coworkers is against company policy. Rose thinks that Jim could be the one, if only she could have some quality time with him in her own apartment. But when she mentions to Maggie about getting a job and getting her own apartment she's only met with blank stares or temper tantrums.

If that's not bad enough, Maggie is constantly on Rose's case about Rose's weight, the way she dresses and her boring personality. Not that it's any business of Maggie's. Rose is frustrated. Maggie is taking advantage of her hospitality, she's not contributing any money to the running of the apartment and she's now wearing Rose's clothes. More than once Rose has come home to find her room in shambles from her clothes being strewn all over the place. Rose really should talk to Maggie, be firm with her, but Maggie is really the only family she has left.

Their father had remarried years ago and their stepmother has never made an effort to befriend the girls. She constantly drones on about My Marcia, the perfect daughter, and dictates to the girls when they can and cannot see their father. There's also a black cloud that hangs over the family regarding their mother, who has always been a mystery to Rose and Maggie. Questions are always met with non-answers and there is very little that can tell the girls about their mother and who she really was. So this hangs over the girls and fuels much frustration.

Things come to a head when Maggie is caught with a man in the house while Rose is out. Pointedly, Jim, Rose's I-thought-he-was-the-one. Within moments, Rose has Jim scuttled out the door, and Maggie not far behind him. She spends the night scouring her apartment top to bottom to work off her anger. There's no thought to what's happened to Maggie. And at this point, Rose just doesn't care. This scenario is all too familiar, Maggie having to have everything Rose has, including her men. Enough is enough.

But the story doesn't end here. This is just up the middle of the story. There's quite a lot of reading in this book as two women take center stage and vie for the attention of the reader. Each story is absorbing as pages turn quickly to see what's happening next. Both women go through such sudden changes in their lives, growth and recreation, that when they meet again it's a wonder that they, or the reader, can recognize them. These women are very well fleshed out so that the reader gets a sense of really knowing each woman and can feel their plights.

The storyline is actually a combination of three storylines masterfully woven together to create a single novel. Rose has a story to tell, as does Maggie. Then there's the story of their mother which must be told so that the reader truly understands who Rose and Maggie Feller really are.