The Foursome - Christina Baker Kline - ★★★.¼

AUTHOR: Christina Baker Kline

GENRE: Historical Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: May 12, 2026

RATING: 3.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: A historical fiction novel about a pair of conjoined twins and their wives. Great historical research, realistic characters, interesting themes. Slow pace. Average writing that goes overboard on ‘telling’. Based on real-life events (related to the original Siamese twins), though the story is fictionalised. An interesting story for lovers of this genre, though it could have been even better.

Plot Preview:

1840s. North Carolina. Sisters Sallie and Addie Yates belong to a prominent local family, but because of a controversy in their past, both the girls struggle to find eligible matches. Despite their contrary personalities, the sisters are fairly close. So when they hear that Chang and Eng Bunker – Siamese towns who have now settled in the same town and own a plantation – are looking for wives, Addie sees them as good potential husbands, despite what everyone else around her thinks of the twins. When the sisters marry the brothers, they know their lives will change, but the actual extent of the challenges turns out to be even greater than anticipated for the foursome.

The story comes to us in Sallie’s first-person perspective over about five decades.

Bookish Yays:

👨🏽‍🤝‍👨🏽 The details on the original ‘Siamese twins’. I didn’t realise that the term came from this particular pair of twins. Learning about them, especially in such detail and with some ironic comparisons, is an interesting experience.

👨🏽‍🤝‍👨🏽 The depiction of the complexities of sibling relationships and spousal relationships, especially when there’s no privacy.

👨🏽‍🤝‍👨🏽 The research about the key events of the five decades covered by the story, including the personal and public lives of the twins and the socio-political upheavals including the American civil war. Good incorporation of historical happenings into the storyline.

👨🏽‍🤝‍👨🏽 The varied yet relevant themes such as women's rights, prevalent social thinking, racial discrimination, and slavery. The last topic is especially well-covered. There are triggering elements as well, though the more brutal stuff is not on page.

👨🏽‍🤝‍👨🏽 The Frankenstein analogy. I was apprehensive at first but it is well-used.

👨🏽‍🤝‍👨🏽 The ending and the epilogue. Probably helped increase my rating somewhat as it wasn’t cheesy.

👨🏽‍🤝‍👨🏽 The author’s note, containing many surprise reveals. I like how she described this as a “work of fiction, grounded in research and shaped by imagination” – seems like an apt one-liner.

Bookish Okays:

‼ The prologue from 1886. Offers an intriguing start but contains way too many reveals.

‼ The secondary characters don’t get much depth as Sallie’s first-person POV is limited to the active events around her, which are minimal. Some characters still leave a mark, the best among whom is Grace – one of the enslaved girls in Sallie’s house.

‼ The conjoined twin angle. What little is present is interesting enough, but I feel the book didn’t explore this topic to the best, mainly due to the choice of narrator. I’d have loved to learn more about their feelings first-hand. If only some chapters came from the twins’ perspective!

‼ The time period goes all the way from the 1840s to the civil war and beyond. But the time clues aren’t so frequent, and at times, it is difficult to remember how old the characters are during a scene. The sectional divisions mention the time range covered, but these are too extensive to be really helpful. Further, thanks to the lengthy period, some events get detailed focus while others are glossed over. The pacing is also on the slower side.

Bookish Nays:

🥜 Sallie as a character and as the narrator. Of the four people in the titular foursome, she is the blandest and most naïve. The biggest issue is that she isn't an instigator or leader in any way; she's a follower. So most of her narration is about what happened to her because of others rather than what she herself did. Further, there is a bias in her narration, with her focussing on only the good or bad points of a character depending on how she views them. I wish she hadn’t been chosen as the sole narrator.

🥜 The overdose of telling. Most key information comes to us through conversations instead of on-page action. Conflicts are glossed over but lovemaking scenes are extensive.

🥜 The slightly demeaning depiction of Siam and the stress on how lucky the twins were to end up in the USA. Might be true to some extent, but no need to harp on it so much. We don’t learn anything good about Siam or Siamese culture.

🥜 One particular back story about sexual assault comes out of nowhere and doesn’t fit in. I felt like it was added just to sensationalise that character’s past issues, but as it was a relatively minor character, this incorporation felt ad hoc.

Overall, while the book is indeed informative in many regards, its historical details are way more appreciable than its writing. I think I might have enjoyed it more had the depiction of the four key characters been more nuanced, had there been more showing instead of telling, and had the narrator been anyone other than Sallie.

This isn't the first historical book I have read containing a true story of conjoined twins. ‘The Maids of Biddenden’ by G.D. Harper focusses on one of the earliest known pairs of conjoined twins, Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst born in Kent in 1100. While this novel was too basic in its writing, it still offered a better perspective on life as a conjoined twin because the twins were the narrators. ‘The Foursome’ is relatively better written, but in choosing an ordinary character as its key narrator, it misses out on creating a greater impact.

Regardless, this novel still offers enough satisfaction if you are not particular about hearing from the Siamese twins directly and are okay with a telling-intensive writing style.

Recommended to fans of historical fiction stories based on actual people and who aren’t fussy about writing.

My thanks to Mariner Books for providing the DRC of “The Foursome” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.