Rating: 
Summary: An intimate, insightful read!
Review: This is the story of the musical genius Jackie Du Pre as told by her sister Hilary and brother Piers.Young Jackie was enthralled by the sounds of a cello at the tender age of 4. At 5 under her mothers tutelage she began lessons. Shortly thereafter, her gift was realized. She played not technically perfect but with an overwhelming passion and depth that stunned the music world. Her sister an accomplished musician in her own right was pushed to the side as the accolades went to Jackie. Piers became a pilot and later a businessman to escape a muscial competition he knew he could not match. Throughout the book the love for family comes through. The mother's joy in music and her care in sharing and teaching her skills to her family flows throughout the book. Jackies development as a musician is swift and her sister Hilary realizes that despite her own talents Jackie has a gift that can't be matched. As an individual who cannot play an instrument, it is fascinating to read of someone who is so gifted. To enter the exciting world of music and feel the passion even as a bystander is entrancing. Reading of how the different cello's required different care depending on their wood and strings and how each made its own unique sounds was an education in itself. And the book swept me up not only musically but emotionally. Frankly I was shocked by the revelations from Hilary. At one point in the book, Jackie was emotionally weak and supposedly too distraught to be alone so she slept with Hilary and Hilary's husband Kiffer in the same bed. In the next few chapters Hilary is upset to discover that her husband sleeps with Jackie on numerous occasions to keep her (Jackie) from plumeting into dispair. But Hilary is stoic realizing it was necessary for Jackies "mental health". Emotionally, I felt like slapping some sense into Hilary. Since when do you invite your sister to share the same bed as you and your husband and not expect some repercussions. This self sacrificing behavior so that, "what Jackie wants, Jackie gets" is evident throughout the book. Eventually Jackie is diagnosed with MS and begins verbally abusing those around her. Sadly she is unable to continue to perform. The book is a hard to put down read and will touch many emotionally.
Rating: 
Summary: I felt like I knew them
Review: This was such an intensely personal story. As Hilary recounts the places and moments of the childhood shared with Jackie I had to fight back the tears as I almost felt that these were my memories too. Hilary and Piers DuPre give so much insight into their family life that it is hard not to walk away from this book feeling like you know them.
Rating: 
Summary: Infuriating
Review: Though not very well written this is a very interesting story: a young woman blessed with extraordinary musical talent whose life and career are cut short by a terrible disease. But I felt great anger while reading it. Jackie was spoiled, selfish, and emotionally unstable. What she needed was psychiatric assistance from trained professionals. Instead, her family coddled her and bent over backwards to accomodate her bizarre behavior, to the extent that her sister Hilary (with her husband's approval)allows an ongoing sexual relationship between her husband and her sister. Imagine lying in bed while your husband is screwing your sister in another room of the house! Incredibly, Hilary and her husband consider this insanity necessary in order to "help" Jackie. As it turns out, nothing could help Jackie; she remained a self-absorbed brat. What happened to her was a tragedy; she eventually became almost a vegetable. Even so, she comes across as a woman whose assets are far outweighed by her appalling behavior, which was reinforced by the indulgences of her family.
Rating:
Summary: Tediously written, with too many embarrassing details.
Review: While it is clear that Hilary and Piers du Pre and the rest of their family dearly loved the precocious Jacqueline, the ways in which they responded to her often unsettling behaviour, and virtually ignored any of her physical complaints (which probably were early symptoms of the disease which killed her) were truly astounding. This middle class family certainly had the means to seek medical and psychiatric attention for their poor sister, but, of course, nothing was done until the disorder was well-advanced. I found the amount of detail used to tell this sad story embarrassing (e.g.,Why do we have to know all the nicknames for every family member? It seems that they get so involved in using overly precious nicknames for each other, that they cannot address real problems, such as mental illness and adultery!) and felt as if I were being forced to witness occurrences that I would have just as happily not known anything about! A strange tale of a malfunctioning family, indeed.
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