Sister stories are rare compared with images of celebrity sisters and 'sisterhood'. Based on 37 interviews with British teenage and adult sisters, this fascinating book uncovers sisters' complex relationships. Readers will play 'mapping' games to guess where they figure in its patterns. Sisters talk passionately about how their closeness and distance affects the power-balance between them in their families. They describe the contradictions in their ties and how these change over the years. This sophisticated study reveals women's ambivalent experiences of sistering in the context of education, work, marriage, motherhood, divorce and bereavement. It challenges popular beliefs about sisters and reassesses sisterhood as a feminist ideal. Making parallels with friendship and caring, it explores formations of gender, identity and intimacy in family life. Sistering was nominated for the British Sociological Association's 2003 Philip Abrams Prize. It is Britain's first sociological account of women's relationships with their sisters.