Review: The Sunshine Sisters by Jane Green

The Sunshine Sisters

by Jane Green

Publisher: Berkley

Pages: 384

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  Ronni Sunshine left London for Hollywood to become a beautiful, charismatic star of the silver screen. But at home, she was a narcissistic, disinterested mother who alienated her three daughters. 

As soon as possible, tomboy Nell fled her mother's overbearing presence to work on a farm and find her own way in the world as a single mother. The target of her mother s criticism, Meredith never felt good enough, thin enough, pretty enough. Her life took her to London and into the arms of a man whom she may not even love. And Lizzy, the youngest, more like Ronni than any of them, seemed to have it easy, using her drive and ambition to build a culinary career to rival her mother's fame, while her marriage crumbled around her. 

But now the Sunshine Girls are together again, called home by Ronni, who has learned that she has a serious disease and needs her daughters to fulfill her final wishes. And though Nell, Meredith, and Lizzy are all going through crises of their own, their mother s illness draws them together to confront old jealousies and secret fears and they discover that blood might be thicker than water after all.

Kritters Thoughts:  What a fantastic novel about three sisters who have gone separate ways and a mother's illness brings them home to confront their childhood and maybe reconnect.

First - I love a story about families when you read about siblings who all come from the same household but end up completely different people.  Nell, Meredith and Lizzy had the same mother and father, maybe different childhoods due to where their parents were in their lives when they arrived, but essentially came from the same home and the three ladies ended up in completely different places - both personally and professionally.  

I loved how this story was set up.  There was a prologue that set the foundation and then we went back in time to the childhood of the sisters and we get a few short chapters in a few snapshot moments in time.  I liked that there were just a few chapters in a few moments, it was the right amount of time spent at each spot in time.  

And the characters!  The mother and three sisters and then their spouses and children and all the things, there were a lot but for some reason it was so easy to keep them all straight as to who went with whom and so on.  

Of course I will avoid spoilers, but will just say briefly I loved the ending.  It was just right!

Already a fan of Jane Green before starting this book and wish she could put more books out each year, they are the perfect pool bag book - thats where I read over half of this one!


Rating: absolutely loved it and want a sequel

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Berkley.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.