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One Pair of Hands

Monica Dickens

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Book

'Life was a wordless battle of wits between us, with her keeping a sharp look-out for signs of...

The Difficulty of Breathing

Joe Egly

10.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

Book

Has the man in the moon ever whispered to you? Did you ever wondered what happened to your white...

YA Coming of Age LGBTQ

Jenny Houle (24 KP) rated The Sunshine Sisters in Books

Jan 13, 2018

The Sunshine Sisters

Jane Green | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry

7.8

(5 Ratings)

Book Rating

I received an ARC from NetGalley for an unbiased opinion.

From the very beginning of the book, we are told the outcome. Green uses the rest of the book to take us through the lives of the Sunshine sisters in relationship to their mother, Ronnie Sunshine.

I cannot suggest a "faster" way to get all the women to the point where they know the eventual outcome, but there was something disheartening about being just over 80% into the book when Ronnie tells her daughters why she has asked them to come home. At the same time, Green, in her ever present style, does a great job of wrapping all the pieces together up so there are no loose ends.

Green is very good, as an author, at reminding us that what the characters see/perceive is not always the case. What a person takes as neglect can, from the other character's viewpoint be an assumption of strength, for example. And when enough people are trying to survive the same demon, in different ways, it becomes easy to look out just for oneself.

Kudos

Eilidh G Clark (177 KP) rated Bitter Almonds in Books

Jul 2, 2019

It's nostalig and sweet (0 more)

Wasn't keen on the recipies but a nice touch (0 more)

Great wee book

I only wanted to read half of this book as the second half is recipes. After the first thirteen pages I put it down and sighed. I like to give a book at least a chapter so I persisted and I am glad I did. The book is written by Simeti about the life of Maria, a Sicilian woman who owns a bakery. The first chapter is all about the art of baking (old school) and I was worried that the whole novel would read along the same lines - after all it is memoir that I want to read. Things turn around after chapter one when Maria discusses her childhood in a nunnery, her feelings of neglect, her hunger but also of what she learned and how she was able to apply this to her later in life career. I found Maria's attitude to religion and family refreshing and enjoyed the conversational tone in which she delivers her own recollections.
This is a book worth persisting with.