The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters

From Goodreads:

The British-born Punjabi Shergill sisters—Rajni, Jezmeen, and Shirina—were never close and barely got along growing up, and now as adults, have grown even further apart. Rajni, a school principal is a stickler for order. Jezmeen, a thirty-year-old struggling actress, fears her big break may never come. Shirina, the peacemaking "good" sister married into wealth and enjoys a picture-perfect life.

On her deathbed, their mother voices one last wish: that her daughters will make a pilgrimage together to the Golden Temple in Amritsar to carry out her final rites. After a trip to India with her mother long ago, Rajni vowed never to return. But she’s always been a dutiful daughter, and cannot, even now, refuse her mother’s request. Jezmeen has just been publicly fired from her television job, so the trip to India is a welcome break to help her pick up the pieces of her broken career. Shirina’s in-laws are pushing her to make a pivotal decision about her married life; time away will help her decide whether to meekly obey, or to bravely stand up for herself for the first time.

Arriving in India, these sisters will make unexpected discoveries about themselves, their mother, and their lives—and learn the real story behind the trip Rajni took with their Mother long ago—a momentous journey that resulted in Mum never being able to return to India again.

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This is a discussion thread for people who have read or are reading the book in question. With that in mind, there are likely to be spoilers throughout. However, in the event of major twists or “how it ends”, please wrap content in spoiler tags.

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[spoiler]Surprise!content here[/spoiler]

  

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— graphics by MJ ♥ —

SO, I enjoyed this book on the whole for sure. I don't often read lit set in India (in fact, I don't think I ever had prior?) and have limited exposure to the culture, so it was a nice change of pace for me. I particularly liked that we saw it from the perspective of women who grew up in the West—I think that allowed the cultural differences to sink in deeper for me, particularly because I saw some of myself in Jezmeen.

What really kept me going, though, was Shirina. I don't know what I was expecting her secret to be, but...

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...I never would have guest at pressure to have a late-term abortion just because the child was female! Holy crap! Like, I appreciate that this happens, but knowing in the abstract and seeing it in a story are two very different things...

  

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