3.5 Stars

Entertaining story. Despite having a hard time following the writing, the characters and their lives drew me in to the end. The subject matter is a bit dark, so this isn't your typical beach summer read, but it is a good way to pass an afternoon.

Thanks to publisher for providing this story.

I’ve been a huge Green fan for years and I always love when it’s time for her to release a new book. There is something about her writing and the easiness, the effortless flow that is like comfort food to me. The Sunshine Sisters was Green doing what she does best; crafting complex characters that virtually anyone could relate to while telling a story that is engaging and fun.

The entire first half of this is a bit on the slower side and impatient readers may get frustrated. It starts in the early eighties when mom Ronni is just beginning her career as an actress. Then there are several smaller sections from the nineties all the way through the early two thousands where the three daughters are growing up. I enjoyed this structure as it gave some background and showed what shaped each woman in a fairly quick way. At the halfway point, it’s present day and Nell, Meredith and Lizzy have all been called home by their mother because she has some news to share.

Ronni was not an easy woman to like, she was an awful mother and an even worse wife, but I really liked all three Sunshine sisters. They are all vastly different from one another but they were well fleshed out and I found I could relate to each of them in some way. They did sort of fit into the stereotypical roles of sisters, one is serious, one is a people pleaser and one is the flighty one, but those aren’t the sort of tropes that annoy me, so I wasn’t bothered in the slightest.

Despite some heavier topics it really does read like a light, summery read. At it’s heart it’s a novel about family, forgiveness, acceptance, letting go of painful pasts, and the always complicated relationships between mothers and daughters and sisters. I read it on vacation and it was truly the perfect book to read on the beach, it’s fun albeit slightly predictable but I honestly didn’t want to be thinking too hard while reading it anyway!

Love Jane Green and loved this book!

These girls are seriously dysfunctional. Ronni Sunshine, the mom, is a movie actress. She spends her life making everything about her alienating her three daughters. Nell, the strong one, Merideth, the chubby one, and Lizzy the baby. The three girls can’t wait to get old enough to move out of the house and once they do, they rarely return or have much to do with their mom or each other.

Now Ronni seems to be really sick and calls them all home. Her idea is to connect the three girls again so that she can have them around her when she takes her own life.

There’s a LOT of drama in this book but it’s a great story and I loved to see how it ended. Highly recommend!

Hands down this is my favorite Jane Green book! This story of Ronni Sunshine and her three daughters was touching, funny and thoroughly enjoyable. We meet Ronni who is an actress as she tries her hardest to make it in the industry. From the very start, she chooses her career over her family including her three daughters whom each have their issues with her.

We get to know the Sunshine Sisters through the years but the storyline comes to life when they are summoned back home by their mother who has some bad news for them. Ronni is terminally ill and wants them there so she can take her life on her terms and most importantly she wants her daughters to reconnect after years of estrangement. Nell, Meredith, and Lizzie hadn’t ever been close not even growing up so when they all come back home it’s a little awkward, to say the least. All have problems in their lives but as soon as they are together they slowly reconnect like never before.

What I loved most is that this story is all about family. The relationship with their mother was a hard one, one that definitely shaped their future, especially on how they viewed themselves. It's really hard to have the self-love and confidence in yourself if the one person who should’ve given you that from day one never did. While I felt for Ronni, her illness and death did bring her daughters together in a way I don’t think they would’ve otherwise. Each one's story comes full circle and each finally finds the peace and love they deserved their entire lives. I found myself laughing and crying, which to me is the sign of a truly amazing book!

Light summer read, but totally predictable. I'm a huge Jane Green fan and I always look forward to her books.

Ronni has been a medium level star who has always treated her family like an annoyance, and as a result, now has very limited relationships with all three of her daughters. Having to fight for their mother's attention has led to all three girls having competitive relationships with each other - when there's not enough love to go around, children will fight for the scraps.

But now, Ronni has discovered she has a fatal disease and wants to make amends with her daughters and help them repair their relationships with each other (nurse alert: this doesn't usually happen, if your a narcissist all your life, you don't usually change in the face of death, you might actually become more self-absorbed).

Nell is running a farm, living on her own after her son left for college. Meri is living in London with a man she doesn't want to marry, but doesn't think she has any other options, and Lizzy is running supper clubs in the city, resenting her husband, ignoring her son, and carrying on an affair with her partner.

The girls are beckoned home by their mother and given the news that she wants them to help her commit suicide. The girls are understandably shocked and resistant to this idea, they haven't even had time to adjust to the news of their mothers illness before they are asked to help her die.

Since this is a Jane Green book, all the answers to your romantic problems are delivered to your door. These books have ruined my chances at remarriage, since I now believe my true love will show up at my door to build me bookshelves.

This is the third book I have read this year that has introduced a lesbian character as a woman who has gone her whole life without ever realizing that she is attracted to women. I've never known a lesbian who didn't realize who she was attracted to until middle age - or that just fell in love with a woman and came out in the matter of two days. I'm all for including all love in the mainstream, but I wish we were making it a little more believable. How about one sister is gay, has always been gay, and is looking for her true love, just like the straight sister?

Anyway, everyone has their loving encounter with their mother that heals all emotional wounds, except for Lizzy, the one spoiled all of her life. Everyone finds love, except for Lizzy. Hmmm....Lizzy does end up with the short end of the stick frequently in this book.

If you are looking for a light beach read, look no further. This is a relaxing way to pass an afternoon and as light as it gets.

The Sunshine Sisters was one of those books that I just devoured. I found myself drawn back to the story of Ronni and her three daughters and I became totally wrapped up in their lives. Talk about a dysfunctional family, wow! And I don't know, was that what drew me to this interesting, complicated family? Don't all of us have some degree of dysfunction in our own families? I just needed to find out if the Sunshine family was able to survive and move on with their lives.

The three sisters are all as different as night and day and they each had their own way of dealing with their difficult mother. Ronni shaped each of her daughter's personalities by the way she treated them. They are the people they are today because of, or in spite of, her.

When Ronni calls them all home, they have to work out their issues with her, and with each other, before they all implode. Watching each of them work through their thoughts and emotions made the story compelling for me and made me think a little bit about my family, at times. Every family, and the siblings in those families have problems. The Sunshine Sisters was a very interesting look at the power of family dynamics.

Do not forget to pack this book in your beach bag with sunscreen this summer. Sure to be a summer hit.

The premise of this book - an aging actress attempting to reconcile for 3 daughters - wa intriguing. However the author failed to captivate me with her sketchy characterization and stereotypes. I thought the lesbian romance was rather contrived and unbelievable. This may be enjoyed as a litchi summer read by some but I prefer a little more depth to family sagas.

What an enjoyable book! A story of a mother/daughters/sisters and the complicated relationships that exist between them. This is a great summer read as Jane Green always is.

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!

The Sunshine Sisters is that great summer read, predictable and comfortable and perfect for the beach.

After battling cancer, Jane Green is now back in the groove of producing a book every summer and I couldn't be happier about that. The Sunshine Sisters involves the relationship of three sisters with their mother, all named Sunshine. It was less beachy, despite the cover, and a more serious exploration of family and relationship dynamics than I would have expected from Green, but I think that she and the chick lit genre are maturing in a good way. I also can see over time how various parts of her life experience are incorporated into her characters....one sister lives on a farm in Connecticut, one lives in England and is involved with a stuffy guy in the financial industry, and the third is a chef running pop-up dining events. The most cliched character was Ronni, the aging Hollywood starlet, but even she had more character depth up her sleeve than expected. This book wasn't all frothy beach read and happy endings, but I did enjoy it and will still look forward to Green's next book next summer.

I received an advance reader copy of this book through NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Review Jane Green is one of the authors that I wait anxiously for new releases from every year, and mark their release dates on my calendar the minute I first hear of them. Thanks to Net Galley for this ARC so I could read this one even sooner! The Sunshine Sisters was a bit different than many of Green's other books, but in a completely wonderful way. I connected deeply with all 3 of the sisters by halfway through the book, and absolutely loved the ending. This story deals with a lot of heavier/deeper topics, but still reads like a warm chick lit beach read. Jane Green retains her spot on my list of favorite authors!

Ronni Sunshine came to America to be a movie star. She never quite got where she wanted to be, I don't think, although she was definitely famous and a star. At home, though, to her three daughters (Nell, Meredith & Lizzy) she was a bit of a "mommie dearest" at times. Self-centered and narcissistic are not great qualities in a mother.

The book goes back and forth in time, and you do have to pay attention a bit to keep up.

But the here and now is, Ronni has been diagnosed with ALS and summons her three daughters home for her final days. They get there, not knowing she is ill, to find out she wants them to stay for several days and at the end of that time, she plans to take her own life. None of the girls want to take part in that, and try to come up with ways to make her see it isn't the best idea.

We watch all three women struggle, not only with their relationship with their mother and the thought of losing her, but struggle with life, and love, and coming to terms with themselves. They are very different and have grown apart, but we watch as life pushes them back together and makes them all deal with themselves and each other.

I enjoyed reading this book and found it an interesting story of family, life and love.

Thanks to Netgalley & Berkley Publishing for allowing me an ARC copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

Enjoyed the read. Reviewed on my May blog at

https://laurasbookreviewsblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/29/may-reads/

Ronnie Sunshine - actress, narcissist, mother, grandmother

Ronnie Sunshine loves the adulation of her fans. She loves being in the spotlight. The love that she has for herself makes it almost impossible for her to find room in her heart for her three daughters - athletic Nell who dreams of owning her own farm; plump Meredith who has great artistic talent but lacks the self-confidence to find the right person to love; and Lizzie, the spoiled youngest daughter who is most like her mother and is now a renowned TV chef and restauranteur.

The three sisters have gone their own ways over the years, not close to each other or to their mother. And now they get calls from their mother saying she wants them all to come home to see her - and reluctance isn't a strong enough word to express how they feel about this.

I've enjoyed author Jane Green's stories in the past and this family drama is another I'm glad I read. Fully explored characters, a few characters that were unlikable (which I always enjoy), and a storyline that brought tears and laughter made this an interesting, engaging read.

I received this book from Berkley Publishing through Net Galley in exchange for my unbiased review.

I have read a few of Jane Green's books in the past and I think this one is completely different from what I expected. This is a tough subject matter to handle and Jane did it well. I don't think that this is my favorite book that she has ever written but it was good.

The relationships between the three Sunshine sisters and their mother was one of discord and anger. They grew up resenting their mother and not feeling loved and cared for. As each of the daughters grew up they moved away from their mother and their sisters.

***Spoilers: This book tackles subjects such as parental abandonment, terminal illness, adultery, negative body image, single parenthood, questioning sexuality, divorce and the main one: dying a dignified death.

The Sunshine Sisters is another great summer read for 2017! This is a good dysfunctional family/forgiveness story but it doesn’t get too overly emotional or dark which makes it just right for a light summertime read.
We move through the lives of the Sunshine sisters from childhood through adulthood seeing how their parental issues affected their lives and relationships. Each sister dealt with their overly dramatic and selfish mother’s moods in different ways and also carried those coping mechanisms into their working and personal relationships later in life. I think everyone can identify a little bit with each sister be it Nell’s fear of vulnerability, Meredith’s people pleasing ways, or Lizzy’s constant need for excitement.
I really enjoyed reading about how each of the sisters dealt with their relationship issues and how they came to realize that they don’t have to carry their family dysfunction on. This has a nice wrapped up ending with a tinge of sadness but it is an enjoyable read even though it was occasionally predictable.

This book is classic Jane Green in all the best ways-multifaceted characters, an idyllic setting, and a story about the complexity of family and personal relationships. The Sunshine Sisters brings together three sisters who have drifted far apart, mostly due to their contentious relationship with their difficult mother, Ronni. But now Ronni needs them to come back together, and despite the complications in their relationships with both her and each other, Nell, Meredith, and Lizzy all return home at their mother's call, and from there will start to discover and heal the things that have fractured them, and find the things that bind them.
Perhaps the only complaint I have about this story is that I just wasn't done with it when it ended. Jane Green enthusiasts will find lots to like here, and if there is somehow a women's fiction reader out there who hasn't discovered her yet, this may be a great place to start. I found that The Sunshine sisters combined the maturity of the writing in her other more recent books with the style of her earlier books, which will be welcomed by new readers and old fans alike.

Ronni Sunshine is a famous, wonderful, pleasant actress on stage, but at home she is anything but wonderful and pleasant. She has no time for her daughters.

We follow Meredith, Nell, and Lizzy as they grow up in an unloving household with a mother who is more of a tyrant than a mother and a mother who cares only for herself.

The girls flee the nest one at a time and have troubles of their own because of their childhood, but now that Ronni is dying, she wants her daughters to rally around her. Ronni also had something else in mind when she invited her daughters back to their childhood home.

Each sister has a totally different personality, and it was interesting to follow them to see the path each one took. Nell seemed to be the responsible one. Meredith seemed to still be looking for happiness. Lizzy was still the fly-by-night, spoiled one.

The family issues and the different lifestyles the girls led were nicely developed by Ms. Green and could be the lifestyle of any young girl growing up trying to make choices.

This is my first book by Ms. Green. It was an enjoyable read and not something I normally read so I was surprised how her writing and story line pulled me in.

Nell seemed like a genuine person who worked hard in her life to make up what she had missed during her childhood.

Meredith kept speaking to me because of the way she put everyone before herself and kept the peace.

Lizzy was self-centered like her mother, and I liked her the least.

The characters did grow on me as they grew emotionally and made choices they never thought they would.

Women's fiction fans will enjoy this book because of the family drama, the regrets, the healing, and how Ms. Green addressed both family and friend relationships, as well as addressing end-of-life decisions.. 4/5

This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation by the publisher and NetGalley in return for an honest review.