Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness, death, mental illness, and death by suicide.

Via the main characters’ braided storylines, Between Sisters explores the complex nature of love. At the novel’s start, Meg, Claire, and Joe are all living separate lives defined by loneliness. Meg is an elite lawyer, living alone in an expensive condo in Seattle; her vocational successes feel empty without a defined social sphere or solid partnership. Claire is raising her daughter as a single mom; she hasn’t had a romantic relationship since she got pregnant, and she hasn’t had a solid relationship with Meg since they were children. While she does have Sam, Ali, and her friends, she longs for a loving partnership and a renewed connection with her sister. Meanwhile, Joe is wandering on foot from place to place, heartbroken in the wake of his wife’s death; he’s mourning Diana and disconnected from his family and community. The characters are all weighed by their alienation; their lives thus feel void of companionship. Their circumstances at the novel’s start show how their lives feel lacking in joy because they don’t have loving communal, romantic, or familial connections to share in it.