Sisters Christian

I don't have a sister, but I do have an identical cousin. And she's always stealing my shit. Ok, not really. What I do have is an older brother with whom I did not get along until he left for college and I got the house and my parents to myself. Now, we get along great and he lives abroad and I see him twice a year and miss him like crazy. The closest thing I had to a sister was my cousin B, who was three months older and bossed me around like it was her job. These days we're as different as can be. She's Southern Living and I'm Bust.

But I always wondered about sisters. Brothers are different, I'm sure, what with their shoving and dirty socks and Star Wars action figures. With sisters surely there's some sort of cosmic link, some weird feminine divinity at work. Maybe it only seems that way to me, sisterless as I am.

And so it was with natural curiosity that I read my review victims: Sisters of a Different Order. It's a blog written by two sisters, two of something like four hundred sisters, I think. I lost count. Maybe it's closer to eight. Anyway, a lot of sisters. I'd say they have a plethora of sisters.

Fascinating, right? All that sisterness? Well, no. Not really. I thought it might be, but sadly it turned out rather boring. Ok, I know that's not nice. And honestly, these ladies really are very sweet and kind-hearted and good and... boring. There are quite a few "here's what I did today" posts. And lord they do go on. And on. My scrolling finger got tired and revolted, which turned into this whole episode where I was giving my monitor the finger. It wasn't pretty. Often the writing is five-paragraph-essay-ish. You know, when you're just learning to write, and you try to write like your teacher tells you to write instead of finding your own voice. One sister is more guilty of this than the other, but across the sisterhood board they're in dire need of an off button.

Oh, and there's religion. Sigh. But it's a very accepting kind of faith, so I wasn't put off, which surprised me because normally people say "pray" or "Christian" or "church" or "sin" and my first instinct is to run far, far away. And then sin. A lot.

But one of the sisters likes Firefly, which I absolutely love 'cause Joss Whedon is my god, so she has that going for her.

As for the design, the banner isn't terrible (although, hi, bright!), but I hate the template. What's with all the colors? Find a palette, stick to it. Roll up your categories, and get rid of some of the sidebar filler. Move the archives up. They're stuck down in no man's land. Some of it is just a mess, with weird changes in font size and color and broken wrapping text around images. Also, it crashed my Firefox, but seems ok in Safari. So beware.

And so here we are down at the summary and I'm a bit surprised two slightly treacly and faithful sisters would submit here, demon spawn that we are. But they do have a sense of humor, so perhaps they have balls to match under those habits.

Overall, I didn't hate it. I didn't much like it, either, but it didn't make me want to gauge my eyes out with a Sharpie or fling invectives their way. They're nice people who write frequently and not terribly and who've created a community for themselves in a relatively short amount of time. It's innocuous, unprepossessing, scrubbed up, and cheerful. Get a new template, clean up your sidebar, and polish up the writing (read: cut out about half of the words you write, have a point and stick to it, and don't include 12 different topics in one post if you can help it). Find your voice, and use it.





Also? Just for me? Maybe get a little gritty? I need a little bad. Ok a lot.

You get this little guy for being so sweet.