Revered for her smart, heartfelt and often funny novels featuring complicated yet lovable protagonists, bestselling author Jennifer Weiner has sold more than 11 million books, including Big Summer, Mrs. Everything and In Her Shoes—the latter was even made into a blockbuster starring Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette. Weiner’s upcoming novel, The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits, out April 8, follows sisters Zoe and Cassie, who were once in a popular band that infamously broke up. Twenty years later, the world still has no idea what tore the pop stars apart. Here, we have an exclusive excerpt from Cassie’s point of view (POV) just for FFW readers!
Keep scrolling to find out what The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits is about, watch an exclusive video Q&A interview with Jennifer Weiner and FIRST for Women Editor-in-Chief Liz Vaccariello, then sit back and enjoy the excerpt. And stay tuned for part two next week, from Zoe’s POV!
What’s Jennifer Weiner’s new book about?
The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits is a gripping saga about two sisters who couldn’t be more different—Zoe, the beautiful, fame-hungry charmer, and Cassie, the reclusive musical prodigy. Catapulted to stardom in the early 2000s as the pop duo the Griffin Sisters, they dominated the spotlight with a range of high-profile appearances from SNL to MTV. But after just one year, the band split up and no one knows why. Two decades later, Zoe is a housewife, Cassie’s disappeared and the sisters haven’t spoken since the breakup. But Zoe’s daughter, Cherry, is determined to find out what happened all those years ago. Meanwhile, Cherry is also trying to make a name for herself and feels drawn to the same musical spotlight. As long-hidden secrets unravel, Cassie and Zoe must confront their past and the choices they made. Can they forgive each other—and themselves? And will the Griffin Sisters ever find their way back to the music? An electric, enthralling ride perfect for fans of Daisy Jones & The Six!
FIRST’s exclusive book talk with Jennifer Weiner
“I think people come to my stories for the relationships—whether it’s sisters, mothers and daughters or romantic relationships,” Weiner tells FIRST. “So, I think all of that will feel very familiar and juicy and relatable in this story.” Watch the video below to hear the whole conversation!
Part one of FIRST’s excerpt of ‘The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits’
Alaska, 2024
Cassie Grossberg zipped her down parka. She put on her left glove with her right hand and used her teeth to tug her right glove over her wrist. She strapped a headlamp around her forehead, over the brim of her knitted wool hat and opened the door. It was nine o’clock in the morning, the starless sky still black as a pot of ink outside, with an icy, knife-edged wind blowing hard enough to make the sides of her wooden house groan. Winter in Alaska felt like punishment. It was cold, of course, and endlessly dark. The sky was black at seven in the morning, when kids left for school. It was dark again by three in the afternoon, when the dismissal bell rang. The hockey teams played under floodlights; the kids on the cross-country ski team practiced with headlamps. Everyone learned to live with it. Either that, or they flew off to Hawaii.
Alaska’s winters suited Cassie. The sharp-edged wind found all of the gaps in her clothing—the space between her scarf and her parka’s zipper, the gap between her hat and her collar—and probed at them zealously. It felt purposefully cruel; a wind that held a grudge, that sidled close and whispered in your ear every shameful, stupid thing you’d ever done. It was unrelenting and pitiless. It felt like what she deserved.
That morning, Cassie felt the cold, but she felt something else, too—a prickle of unease at the back of her neck; an unwelcome sensation that meant that, somewhere, her songs were being played; her name was being spoken. It had been that way for years. She’d get that goosebump-y feeling, that feeling of being watched, and she’d turn on the radio or the TV, and boom, there they’d be, her voice and Zoe’s, singing “The Gift” or “Flavor of the Week” or “Last Night in Fishtown.” And she’d be forced to think of her sister, to remember, even though remembering hurt
When they were girls, Zoe had been Cassie’s companion, her protector; once, she’d believed, her friend. Had things gone the way they should have, they would have grown up and gone in separate directions: Cassie, to a life in classical music, and Zoe, probably, to college, unless her sister had managed to find some other path to the stardom she’d always yearned for. A degree, a husband, a regular kind of job.
That hadn’t happened. And now….“Never mind,” Cassie rasped.
Her dog, Wesley, looked up at her. His expression seemed vaguely startled. Cassie wondered how long it had been since he’d heard her talk. She crouched down to scratch behind his ears. At just under 20 pounds, Wesley was conveniently portable, easy for Cassie to scoop up under an arm or tuck into her coat as needed.
Cassie had never planned on getting a dog. Pets were a comfort. They provided companionship. Cassie hadn’t thought she deserved either of those things. But six years ago, she’d opened her door to find a small dog with reddish-brown fur and white spots, his tail tucked neatly underneath him, ears quivering uncertainly as he looked at her.
“Hello,” she said, before she could stop herself. He hadn’t been wearing a collar, and when she’d brought him to the vet, she found that he wasn’t chipped. “You could take him to the shelter,” the tech said. “But, you know, older dogs…” Her voice trailed off, and, right on cue, the little dog had whimpered, as if he understood what he’d heard. Cassie did not deserve the comfort of a dog. She’d hurt everyone who’d gotten close to her. But the dog didn’t deserve a death sentence. Cassie had paid the bill and carried the dog to her car.
“I’m not going to be a lot of fun,” she warned the dog, unlocking the car’s doors. Wesley regarded her warily. She put him in the back seat and googled the location of the nearest pet shop, where she bought a leash, a collar, a bag of kibble and a crate that Wesley ended up never using, preferring, instead, to sleep curled up at the foot of Cassie’s single bed.
Cassie had done her best to make a life where she saw, and spoke to, as few people as possible. She’d had enough of people; enough of attention, enough of the world. Early on, after everything had gone wrong, she’d thought about killing herself. She’d wanted to die. Only that felt like the easy way out, like she was ducking her punishment, avoiding what she deserved. Which was to live out her days alone, with the knowledge of all the pain she’d caused the people who had loved her.
She’d started out in Oregon, 3,000 miles from home, in an A-frame, an hour outside of Portland. Stunning views of the Pacific Ocean, rolling sand dunes and Salmon Creek, the ad had read. Cassie had ordered blackout curtains to cover the windows that faced the water and had plodded through her days. She didn’t have a TV, didn’t buy new clothes, didn’t go out to the movies or to restaurants. She ate the same three meals each day: cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, a chicken breast for dinner. She didn’t listen to any music, didn’t buy a piano or sing in the shower. On the rare occasions when she needed to go somewhere, she kept the car radio tuned to the all-news channel. She shopped for groceries early in the morning or late at night and did her banking online. But there were too many people; too many eyes that lit up in recognition at her face; too many occasions when she’d hear a bar or two of the band’s music and be sent hurtling back to a place she didn’t want to go.
Check back here next week for another excerpt from Zoe’s point of view! And preorder your copy of The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits now to read the whole story.
Excerpted from The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner. Copyright © 2025 by Jennifer Weiner. From William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers. Reprinted by permission.