I have read many of Jennifer Weiner's books, some I have loved more than others. Her narrative has such a persuasive way of getting me hooked on the story, even if the plot sounds predictable. I have to keep reading, the characters practically calling out to me to stop what I am doing and finish the book!
The Griffin Sisters starts out with sisterly love and encouragement, which turns into sibling rivalry as their musical career takes off. One sister is more talented, the other is more beautiful. Together, they are great, but when a love triangle and a major event drives them apart, they each feel something is missing and ultimately cannot be happy in their personal lives without each other.
Each character is well thought out - Zoe (the pretty one) Cassie (the talented one) and Zoe's daughter, Cherry, who has the looks, talent and personality to become a star.
The one issue I have with this book is the constant reference to Cassie being overweight and not attractive to anyone, even though that turns out not to be true. Why make it about weight? There was enough conflict between beauty and talent between them anyway.

Told in dual timelines, the rise and fall of the Griffin Sisters' iconic music leaves a mark for generations, literally. In the 2000's the sisters (Zoe and Cassie) made music that embedded itself into the hearts of their fans. Two decades later, Zoe's daughter is embarking on a music journey of her own. In order to do so, she finds herself between the mom she has always known and the aunt she has never met, unpacking the mystery of the past so she can pave the way for her future.

I really enjoyed this story overall. I know this is going to be overdone, but I really did get the vibes of Daisy Jones and the Six, mainly by the way Jennifer Weiner described music in general. As a reader, I felt like I was in the room as they were writing the songs and could feel the melody in my heart through the pages. I enjoyed that connection and think it was really well done.

As far as the dual timelines, I was interested in both. But, as usual, the past pulled me in deeper. The characters were deeply flawed but utterly engaging, and it really felt like figuring out the past was the key to Cherry's future. I was not entirely interested in the present day story until it started connecting further with the past, about 3/4 of the way through. But still, entertaining nonetheless.

Another stunner from Jennifer Weiner, out today! Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for my eARC in exchange for an honest review!

The biggest act of the early 2000s is led by sisters Cassie and Zoe, but when secrets, a tragedy, and more come between them, their band implodes, and leaving one sister living as a recluse as the other lives the life of a suburban mom. 
Cherry has musical aspirations of her own and books a ticket to Hollywood to take her chances on the hottest reality music show. She can sing, and she promises the producers a reunion of her mom and aunt to help her longevity on the show. Armed with some cash, her cell phone camera, and chutzpah, she's off to the wilds of Alaska. 
As the truth of the past unfolds and catches up to everyone, secrets are revealed, but can the broken family be reunited?
This unputdownable book is written from several points of view and covers multiple generations. Riveting from beginning to end, it's the hottest thing since the girl act music wars of the early aughts with a modern twist. A must-read.

I really enjoyed this one. I always enjoy Jennifer Weiner’s writing style but some work better than others…this was a win. It was compared to Daisy Jones and the Six but I really disliked that book and liked this one a lot more. If you’re into music-themed books and movies, you’ll probably love this. I appreciated the early 00s setting as well.

A tale of two sisters. Cassie – a musical prodigy with few social skills, and Zoe – beautiful, driven and moderately talented. Together they were the Griffin Sisters and, with their band, they struck gold with their first – and only – album in the early 2000’s. But despite their meteoric rise, the fame was short-lived. The group disbanded and went their separate ways.

Twenty years later, the sisters are estranged and lead vastly different lives. Zoe is a housewife, raising her children in an affluent New Jersey suburb. And Cassie retreated to Alaska and has little contact with the world. When Zoe’s daughter takes part in an American Idol-like TV show, she is determined to find Cassie. And when she does, long-held secrets - and betrayals - finally come to light.

Jennifer Weiner excels at messy, complicated, and multi-layered family dynamics and that was on full display with The Griffin Sisters. Cassie struggled with social anxiety, with body image, and the intense (and cruel) public scrutiny of her plus size body. Zoe, while pretty and outgoing, knew she did not have the talent of her sister. The friction and jealousy their differences caused played out again and again. The attentions of bandmate Russell D’Angelo added fuel to the fire and became a catalyst for what was to come.

While I empathized with Cassie and every petty cruelty and dismissive remark hurled her way, I could not be as accepting of Zoe. Her manipulations, both large and small, impacted so many lives and had such lasting repercussions. I was anxious to see if Cassie would be forgiving and if the sisters would ever find a way back to one another.

It’s easy to get lost in Weiner’s characters and feel as though you are a part of their lives – or at least an intimate spectator. That held true for The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits and I truly enjoyed the experience.

Zoe and Cassie are sisters who are just one year in age different, but they are totally in every way possible. They used to be in a band together and now there is a huge gap between them.
The book was interesting but for me I could not get into it and connect with the sisters. There were bumps in the story that made it hard to root for them getting back together as a band.
Thank you NetGalley, Jennifer Weiner and William Morrow for the copy of The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits. This is my personal review.

This was such a a sad book! Not just the characters - which were sad, sad people. Not a likable one in the bunch! You could feel sorry for all the phobia - but it was so overdone! The story was so predictable and the build up to someone dying - when it happened it was just anticlimactic! Oh well he died - no big thing!

I really love this author - just not this book!!

The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits is the newest release by Jennifer Weiner. This one toggles between the present day and life 20 years earlier. Cassie and Zoe are known as the Griffin Sisters. They formed a band in the early 2000s with an amazingly well-received album that skyrocketed them to celebrityhood. Zoe absolutely loved being in the spotlight but Cassie would have been happy never setting foot on a stage. She only did so because she knew how much it meant to her sister. Fast forward 20 years, Casie and Zoe are no longer speaking. The two alternate timelines play out exactly what led to the divide between these two once very close sisters. Read and enjoy!

This is a moving story about a family. It's about what we do for our family and what we do to them. It's also about the pitfalls of fame and how chasing it and having it can affect a person and their entire life. Zoe is a character who grows a lot throughout the story. She starts out as a jealous, selfish person who manipulates her sister into being in a band with her because she wants to be famous. She needs to learn to really care about others' wants and needs and how to be there for them.

Cassie is a different kind of character for Jennifer Weiner. She often writes about big girls who are confident and at least fairly comfortable with themselves, whereas Cassie is neither. She has to learn that she is a good person worthy of love just the way she is. Even before she achieves that, just by putting herself out there, she becomes a role model for people like herself, within the world of the book, who feel unaccepted by society. The character of Cassie can easily serve that function for readers who are like her as well.

Thank you, @JenniferWeinerWrites and @WilliamMorrowBooks for my free book.

📚 #BOOKREVIEW 📚
The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / Pages: 382 / Genre: Fiction
Release Date: April 8, 2025
🥳#HappyPubDay!🎉

In the early 2000s, Zoe and Cassie Grossberg hit the pop charts as The Griffin Sisters. They embarked on a whirlwind tour that started off playing a couple of songs in radio stations to sold-out stadiums until it all ended in tragedy. Zoe was the pretty, outgoing one with no talent but a ton of drive and ambition. Cassie was the fat, frumpy one with no social skills but with all the talent. And then there was Russell, the sweet and sensitive lead guitarist who wrote all the songs with Cassie but shared a bed with Zoe.

The excitement of being discovered and going on tour was exhilarating. The guilt and heartache that everyone suffered in silence was heartbreaking. I really enjoyed this story full of complex characters, hope, joy, and regret.

This book follows two sisters in the early aughts who get famous with their band, The Griffin Sisters. Zoe, the conventionally pretty, well-liked but untalented one and Cassie, the musical prodigy who's fat and awkward. The hugely popular band only recorded one album before the band broke up.
It's told in multi POV (Cassie, Zoe, and Zoe's daughter, Cherry) and bounces from past to present. And there was lot to unpack. The autistic-coded main character (which lacked nuance) was the only likeable one in the bunch. Her sister and her niece both only wanting her for her talent. I really never found the empathy for Zoe, whose guilt made her ignore her eldest child. There was some redemption for her, but maybe I didn't want it? Like, I think I didn't want her to find happiness and forgiveness 20 years later? Maybe that's a spoiler...

Cassie and Zoe are two sisters, born only a year apart and grow up very close. Zoe is beautiful and charming and wants to be famous. Cassie is born with a rare musical gift, she can play anything from ear and has a beautiful singing voice, but wants no part of fame. She will only sing with Zoe. They end up singing together in public for the first time and end up being discovered. As young teenagers they are cast into the spotlight and become the famous "Griffin Sisters". Cassie really struggles because she has always felt like the ugly duckling sister compared to the charismatic Zoe. But soon, Cassie's light begins to outshine Zoe because of her mega talent, whereas Cassie is clearly less so. This starts to cause tension in the band and between the sisters. Things continue to build until one tragic night when their world is blown apart. The band then breaks up and the sisters go their separate ways and lose touch for many years. We then start to unearth the stories and secrets from the past. Can the sisters get over the past and find a way back to each other?

I'm never sure if a music based story will work for me or not, but I trusted Weiner's writing and ended up really enjoying this story. It was so much more than just the music. It delves into sisterhood, family dynamics, secrets and lies. I thought the characters were well developed and showed a real growth.

Thank you to @netgalley and @williammorrow for this #gifted copy. Publishes today 04/08/2025.

Two sisters, one a musical prodigy, the other, beautiful and hungry for fame. The Griffin Sisters rocket to stardom in the early 2000’s, and in the blink of an eye, tragedy breaks up the band. 20 years later, Cherry is wanting to break into the music business, but her mother won’t support her dreams and won’t talk about her own experience in one of the most famous groups of all time. Cherry sets off on her own journey to make music and find answers.

While the first half of the book felt slow to me, the pacing picked up in the second half, and I enjoyed the story. I love music in the late 90’s-early 2000’s, so the premise is one I was drawn to. It’s hard to read how sad and uncomfortable Cassie is most of the time, but I did like how everything wrapped up in the end.

Thank you NetGalley for the early copy.

I really enjoyed this book! I wish there was some more of the singing and recording/touring process but otherwise thought it was a good read. Zoe is a very unlikable character, and I am glad there was a slight shift toward the end to be a more empathetic person.

Thank you to NetGalley, author Jennifer Weiner, and William Morrow for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

This had potential but poor execution. I love any book set in the music industry, and I enjoyed all the parts talking about the sisters making music together. The beginning of the book had promise and peaked my interest! I really enjoyed reading about Cherry and her personal journey with music. However, once it got to focusing more about Zoe and Cassie’s history, the story became miserable. There was so much repetition talking about how Zoe was “gorgeous” just because she was skinny, and then describing Cassie as if she was the most vile, disgusting, ugly person just because she was plus-sized. I do understand that some of this imagery/description was due to Cassie’s personal feelings about herself and insecurities, but it was extreme overkill in the way it was described. Zoe was also quite literally a horrible character from her actions to her motivations to her character growth. I love an unlikeable character, but she was beyond anyone that I could root for in the slightest, and I was really put off by this. There was quite a bit of melodrama that felt unnecessary, and ultimately, I think the writing just wasn’t there for what I was wanting in this read.

📚 ARC BOOK REVIEW 📚

The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits
By Jennifer Weiner
Publication Date: April 8, 2025
Publisher: William Morrow

📚MY RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you so much to William Morrow and Jennifer Weiner for sending me a #gifted ARC copy of this book, as well as the gorgeous #gifted special edition book -- and to NetGalley for this e-ARC, in exchange for my honest review!

📚MY REVIEW:

At the risk of sounding slightly off-key: I wasn't initially a fan of this book and didn't know if I was going to like it. The first third was a really slow burn, similar to the way you feel when you listen to new music by your favorite singer. You know what it's like: you're unsure of the tune and the lyrics are unfamiliar. But then you hear the hook of the chorus a second time, and you start feeling its familiarity. This book was very much like that.

I'm not sure of the exact moment it hooked me, but suddenly, the storyline piqued my attention and I realized these characters in The Griffin Sister's Greatest Hits had wrapped themselves around my heart. This book became unputdownable as I held my breath and waited to see how it was all going to play out in the pages (pun intended). And by the end, I had big ol' tears running down my face. Yup, it's THAT good.

Jennifer Weiner is just a MAESTRO when it comes to character-driven stories of brilliantly-flawed human beings. She creates characters who remind us of ourselves and each other, the loves we've lost, the joys we've experienced, our hopes and our dreams, our best moments, our worst moments, and the extraordinary magic of all the moments in between. She has an uncanny ability to write something brand new that somehow feels nostalgically familiar at the same time.

The alternating perspectives and multiple timelines in this book worked so beautifully with the way the story was told, allowing both the words and the music to unfold exactly as they should. This is a book about two sisters who start a band in the early 2000s, but it's so much more. You don't even need the summary -- this is Jennifer Weiner. You're going to love it.

If you've been a fan of Weiner's reads in the past, here's your new favorite. If you're a fan of books like Daisy Jones and The Six or The Favorites; if you love shows like VH1's Behind The Music, American Idol, or MTV Unplugged; if you're a fan of singer-songwriters, lyrics, small-town musicians who make it big after being discovered in a smoky bar on a random Tuesday...Say hello to Cassie, Zoe, Russell, Cherry, and a host of supporting characters who are about to feel like you've known them your whole life. The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits will stay with you like that favorite album you listen to, again and again, both the A side AND the B side, and never tire of it. This book was billed as one of the year's most highly-anticipated reads, and it lived up to every bit of the hype for me. I hope it does for you too. Happy Reading, my friend.

#TheGriffinSistersGreatestHits #JenniferWeiner #WilliamMorrow #gifted #ARC #NetGalley #NetGalleyReviews #bookreviews #bookrecs #MUSTREADS #fivestarreads #womensfiction #booklover #bookaddict

I’m torn.
There were moments in the story I genuinely loved (the songwriting and lyrics 💜, the band’s ’rise to fame’)—they stood out and drew me in, however, they were overshadowed by the story’s other shortcomings. The author’s emphasis on weight and beauty (over and over and over—I get it!) distracted from the deeper themes that the story was trying to explore….
Dishonesty
Dysfunctional family
Social anxiety
Love
Death/grief
Identity
Talent
3.5 stars

Thank you Harper Collin’s for this advanced reader copy

This book is phenomenal! I have enjoyed all of the Jennifer Weiner books I’ve read, but this is a current favorite.

Janice and Sam are young and start their family so soon after they get married. Zoe is such a joy and is followed so closely by her sister Cassie. Janice struggles to bond as closely to Cassie as she does to Zoe and this is a worry for her.

When Cassie is 4 she crawls up on the piano bench and is able to play many songs completely by ear. Her parents struggle to get her lessons to nurture her talent.

Zoe dreams of being a musician from a young age when she and Cassie would sing to each other in their room at night.

Cassie is very shy and wants to shrink into the shadows because she isn’t built like a model and doesn’t like people looking at her. She hates the attention and wondering what people are really thinking about her.

Zoe comes to Cassie in a panic when her band leaves her suddenly after they had entered a battle of the bands.

Zoe is able to convince Cassie to sing with her and the nephew of the right person to launch them into a career is there.

This is a story of sisters supporting each other and trying to tear the other down because of their jealousy.

It’s a story of a daughter that isn’t allowed to pursue her love of music because of her mother’s path to fame.

It’s a story of being found again and becoming the best version of yourself after forgiving the past.

4.75 rounded up. Took a minute to get into, but only just a minute. Soon, I was catapulted into the world of Zoe and Cassie and was hanging on tightly.

The dual timeline of the book was perfect. The ‘00s culture was very well portrayed and they angst and longing felt so natural. The only things that didn’t was the band’s name, lol.

The end was a bit too smooth and glossy, it’s my only complaint. However, it made me cry, too. So, all in all, a decades long story that felt real, heartbreaking and hopeful.

Advanced reader copy provided by William Morrow and NetGalley but all opinions are my own.

The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits is a compelling story of sisterhood, music, identity and fame. As someone who was a teenager in the 2000s, I really loved the way the music scene was portrayed in this book, especially with how female musicians were treated and handled. I enjoyed the different timelines layered throughout and of course, I’m a sucker for multiple POVs. The story itself kept me very intrigued and it was so interesting to see Zoe and Cassie as teenagers and how they evolved as adults. There were a few things that I wasn’t a fan of, Cherry being the top of the list. She was incredibly selfish and self involved, even for a young girl. I really didn’t care for how she viewed her dreams of stardom as the most important thing, especially at the expense of her mom and aunt given all their history. Also, there were a few plot points that were incredibly interesting, but had no closure or explanation at the end and that was disappointing. However, I still really enjoyed the heart of the story and think fans of books like The Daydreams or Daisy Jones and the Six would enjoy it!
CW: fatphobia, death, sexual assault, drug use

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for an advanced reader’s copy!