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    The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters: A Novel
    The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters: A Novel
    The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters: A Novel
    Audiobook13 hours

    The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters: A Novel

    Written by Balli Kaur Jaswal

    Narrated by Soneela Nankani and Deepti Gupta

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The author of the Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows follows her acclaimed America debut with this life-affirming, witty family drama—an Indian This Is Where I Leave You—about three Punjabi sisters embarking on a pilgrimage to their homeland to lay their mother to rest.

    The British-born Punjabi Shergill sisters—Rajni, Jezmeen, and Shirnia—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.

    The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters is a female take on the Indian travel narrative. ""I was curious about how different the trip would be if it were undertaken by women, who are vulnerable to different dangers in a male-dominated society,"" Balli Kaur Jaswal writes. ""I also wanted to explore the tensions between tradition and modernity in immigrant communities, and particularly how those tensions play out among women like these sisters, who are the first generation to be raised outside of India.""

    Powerful, emotionally evocative, and wonderfully atmospheric, The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters is a charming and thoughtful story that illuminates the bonds of family, sisterhood, and heritage that tether us despite our differences. Funny and heartbreaking, it is a reminder of the truly important things we must treasure in our lives.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateApr 30, 2019
    ISBN9780062899125
    Author

    Balli Kaur Jaswal

    The daughter of a diplomat, Balli Kaur Jaswal was born in Singapore and grew up in Japan, Russia, and the Philippines. She received a BA in Creative Writing from Hollins University in Virginia and a PhD from Singapore’s Nanyang Technical University. Her essays and op-eds about diaspora, censorship, racism, and sexuality have appeared in the New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29, The South China Morning Post, Harper’s Bazaar, and Salon.com. She lives with her family in Singapore, where she is a professor at Yale-NUS.

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    Reviews for The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters

    4/5

    223 ratings13 reviews

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    • 4/5
      An easy listen that opened up my world a bit.
    • 5/5
      Wonderful story. Very thoughtfully written. I would 100% recommend it!
    • 5/5
      Resonated with the sibling and parental dynamic between the characters. It was refreshing.
    • 5/5
      Loved every minute of this book. Very interés and cultural, great read.
    • 5/5
      A story about Indian conservative customs vs modern ones. The author showed us the values of sisterhood and the strengths of their characters.
    • 5/5
      Modern story of old family tradition and overcoming with love and heart rather faith and obligations, highly recommend.
    • 4/5
      From the cover and synopsis I was slightly concerned this would be a bit Chiklit. I need not have worried, it has more to it than that. When their mother dies and leaves them a letter sending them on pilgrimage to India to scatter her ashes, the Shergill sisters start a journey that will have an impact on the rest of their lives. They each have different worries and concerns that they are not keen on sharing and, at first, the pilgrimage is not achieving their mother's aim of bringing the three together. They are quite different personalities and that comes across very well. Yet when the chips are down, they pull together and they do form a bond as adults that is not based purely on shared memory and upbringing. While I'm not of Indian descent, I found the mixture of friction and bonding felt very real to me. My brother and I revert to type when we're together for too long ( and 8 days would most definitely be too long!) me the bossy older sister, him the laid back one who floats along. But we both know that if the chips were down we'd be there. That underlying tone really came through towards the end, when they do actually pull together. They may not complete the pilgrimage as intended in a physical sense, but they do achieve an understanding and resolution in their relationship that will stand them in good stead for the future. And it is true that after the death of a parent you do need to renegotiate a lot of relationships, particularly with family, once the point of reference has been removed. While this was a book about women it was a lot deeper than the chicklit appearance it gives off.
    • 3/5
      I felt like the title was a bit of a misnomer, not so much an adventure as a meandering through life's sometimes unfair lessons. While not especially close as grown ups, sisters Rajni, Shirini and Jezmeen undertake a trip to India at their deceased mother's behest. The letter she leaves detailing their journey seems to be full of unreachable hope about the closeness the three will come to find. All are hiding parts of their lives from each other. Add in the difficulty of traveling as women in India and the story moves along. The end was really the best, as the three began to take notice of each other again, instead of hiding behind their other personas.
    • 4/5
      I so loved Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows that I was sure I'd love this book too, but it irritated me so much, I almost stopped reading it. These days with all the controversy about mask-wearing and the question of just what we're willing to do to keep our community safe, this book about relationships in and duty to family is very timely. Just how much do you owe your family when it conflicts with your own personal desires? This part borders on infuriating. Then there's the trip to India. After seeing Adam Sandler's Uncut Gems I was sure I never wanted to see the "real" side of New York City. I've never wanted to visit India just because of the descriptions I've read of the heat and odors, and this book brings that home. I do like what the author has to say about men loving the freedom of biking through India and the wonderful hospitality they feel as they eat in the homes of strangers, and how this differs from a woman alone trying to navigate her way through the country. But, if you read it, soldier on. It does have something to say.
    • 4/5
      cool!! feminist, detailed story with LOTS of humour and LOTS of layers.

      would've read it a lot faster but i had to read it for work so it took me a long time. i appreciated it a lot tho and i'd love to read her other book!
    • 3/5
      To its credit, The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters sets a tone and keeps it throughout the story. The author enjoyed writing the book because it has a beginning middle and clear end. The book dragged on and on and was quite depressing in parts. Three stars is a good middle of the road book. There is nothing exemplary about the story.
    • 4/5
      A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.This novel is about three British-born sisters—Rajni, Jezmeen, and Shirina—who do not get along very well, especially now that they are adults. The sisters embark on a pilgrimage to India in order to fulfil their mother's dying wishes, and to lay her to rest.Rajni is a school principal. She is serious in nature and is always trying to maintain some form of control, especially over her teenage son. Jezmeen is a struggling actress, who at thirty, fears she'll never make it. Shirina is the peacemaker in the family. She is the good girl who has married into a traditional, yet very wealthy, family.When Rajni was a child, she visited India with her mother, Sita, and vowed never to go back. But being a dutiful daughter, she must cary out her mother's last wish. For Jazmeen, the timing is perfect. She has just been publicly fired from her job in television. The timing also seems to agree with Shirina, who is having trouble at home with her overbearing in-laws. They are pushing her to make a decision that will have a lasting impact on her married life—she needs to decide whether to obey as expected, or for once, stand up for herself.Travelling to India, the girls all experience self-discovery as well as the voyage brings them together as Sita had hoped it would. The sisters also learn more about their mother, as well as what really happened on the trip that she and Rajni took and why Sita could never return to India.After reading the hilarious and heart-warming Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, I was sincerely thrilled to be selected to review The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters. What I enjoyed (again) about Jaswal's writing is the humour that is sprinkled throughout—there are a lot of wonderful comedic bits to this story that balance out the more weightier parts that surface over the course of the narrative.This book is a female take on the Indian travel narrative. Women have to be more aware and alert when travelling, especially in a male-dominated society. Balli does women a great service by writing about some of these challenges and considerations. These dangers also contributed to the palpable tension that is present throughout the story; there is tension between the sisters because of their shared history, as well as the tension between tradition and modernity. The Shergill girls are the first generation in their family to be raised outside of India. They struggle with straddling both worlds, especially returning to a country that is tied to their past—they can identify with the culture, however, they don't fully belong there. In The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters, this plays out in moments of confusion, humour, misunderstanding, and conflict.Jaswal's writing is powerful, yet thoughtful, and of course, charming. What amazes me how she can shine a spotlight on issues that Indian women face, but is so graceful and engaging, striking the perfect tone. Another gem!
    • 5/5
      Luminous!A journey undertaken by the British Punjabi sisters Rajni, Jezmeen, and Shirnia to scatter their mothers ashes in India becomes a pilgrimage towards love, understanding and acceptance, and a reworking of the bond that threads sisters together.Three Sikh sisters reunite to meet their mother last request and in doing so uncover so much more.A stunning story of family, that also uncovers practices and prevalent attitudes towards women, touching on inheritance, the bias against female babies, along with tenets of faith and devotion, and the tension these attributes bring for the more modern woman.Jezmeen, the actress who seems to go on free-for-all binges and rants that have her worst moments captured on YouTube.Rajni, the eldest sister who is responsible, uptight and disapproving. Shirnia, who hides a secret that will be exposed, and in that exposure finds the support and acceptance she so desperately craves. As the journey continues, the sisters' relationship become more transparent and some of the past becomes clear.I loved these sisters' interactions, the exposure of their fears and desires, their past hurts and their growing together. I laughed and I cried for the complexities and the many misunderstandings, countered by moments of joy and empathy, as their pilgrimage became a homage to their mother's wisdom and their return to each other.Wonderful!A Harper Collins ARC via NetGalley