An interesting book about sisters. It also about collecting things: money, objects, ideas, lovers, lessons...Allegra Goiodman's novel is set during the explosion of dot com start companies that took the stock market by storm and made millionaires out of brilliant programming kids. Juxtaposed with the young energetic generation, is an older wiser one that warns the youth about their wild extragavance. Like most young people, experience is the best teacher. And experience can never be predicted. Nor could the effect of learning the true identity of a mother who passed away early in the lives of two young girls, nor could the love affair between distant generations, nor the day two airplanes crashed into two towers.

Goodman shows us that in collecting things, the objects themselves lose their luster once they are possessed. Once the luster has vanished, we either become content with what we have, yearn for something more, or understand that one will always lead to the other, and, that with this knowledge comes a possession that no one can ever take away: wisdom to recognize the difference.