December 17, 2019
The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal
The three Shergill sisters were all born in England, and only the
oldest sister has ever visited India.
The sisters weren’t close growing up and have grown even further apart as
adults. They are shocked when their
widowed mother makes a last request on her deathbed: that her three daughters make a pilgrimage to
India to visit the holy sites and spread her ashes. Each of the sisters feels responsible for
their mother’s lifelong unhappiness, and their stories unfold along their
travels, bringing them closer together as their mother wished.
I was interested enough in the sisters to continue reading, but
disappointed in the repetitiveness of their thoughts and the slow pacing made the story drag.
(I’m sorry, but the India described in the book sounds like a horrible
place: very hot and humid, crowded,
dirty, and dangerous for women. There
are 15% more men than women in India, due to the cultural preference for sons,
and the Indian men in the story break into violence very quickly.)
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