wow. this is incredible. i can’t wait to pick up a physical copy when it comes out. the sister relationship is what drew me to it in the first place but i really found a kindred spirit in the narrator, amy. i would highly recommend this to anyone with a sister, anyone who loves someone with a mental illness, or anyone processing grief.

One of those family stories where there's nothing much going on. Two sisters, one scholarly and shy (and probably on the spectrum but no one ever goes there) and one an addictive mess (who is possibly diagnosed later in life) and their lives. Sadly, neither are terribly interesting because Amy is pretty much a monotone and we only see Olivia through Amy's eyes.

On the other hand, this really feels like an Oprah pick so what do I know?

eARC provided by publisher via Netgalley.

Shred Sisters offers a candid exploration of the complexities of female friendships, particularly in the context of shared struggles and personal growth. I appreciated Lerner's ability to weave together personal anecdotes and broader themes, creating a relatable narrative that resonates with many women. The book's strength lies in its raw honesty and the way it captures the nuances of support and rivalry among friends.
However, I found some sections to be a bit repetitive, which detracted from the overall flow. Additionally, while the insights are valuable, I wished for a deeper exploration of certain characters, as some felt underdeveloped.
Overall, Shred Sisters is an engaging read that highlights the importance of connection and resilience, even if it occasionally stumbles in pacing and depth.

Shred Sisters tells the story of the dysfunctional Shred family. It is told from the point of view of Amy, the younger Shred sister who is quiet, studious, and always does what she is told. Olivia, by comparison, is a hurricane. She is beautiful, charismatic, and prone to disappearing for long stretches of time, then popping back up the moment she needs something from her family. The story follows them through their high school years and into adulthood, chronicling school, jobs, relationships, divorces, and children. All the members of the family were really well developed characters and it was so interesting to see how their relationships changed over time, especially when it came to their relationships with Olivia. It also touches on sensitive topics including mental illness and addiction, so readers should keep that in mind. This would be a great book for anyone who enjoys stories about family or character driven books. I found the writing style to be very readable and I didn't want to put the book down.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the advanced reader copy.

A beautiful and heartbreaking novel about family can be the ones you love but not necessarily like and the enduring rollercoaster of mental illness. Amy is a compelling protagonist who earns your empathy and your frustration. A great read.

Amy and Ollie couldn't be more different, as many sisters are, but that's why you connect with them. I could see myself in both Amy and Ollie, and their struggles (including the struggles of their entire family) in mine as well. Almost every person has been affected by someone close to them who has mental illness. Sometimes that impact is negative. Sometimes it tears relationships apart. Sometimes you have to put in a ton of effort to reforge that relationship.

Anyway. This book tugged at my heartstrings, and it will tug at many more. I can see many, many different kinds of people and readers enjoying this novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for an e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

I was very excited to read this book because of the themes of sisterhood and mental illness, but, unfortunately, it fell flat for me.
After a — in my opinion — very strong start, I quickly lost interest and found myself skimming the second half of the book. This was mostly due to how boring and, honestly, annoying and whiny I thought Amy, the sister whose perspective we’re reading from, was. I would have found this book much more interesting if we had spent more time with Ollie, the other and more complicated sister.
Instead, I was stuck reading about Amy’s day-to-day life and her struggles forming relationships with other people outside of her difficult family life and, while that might sound interesting, I thought it was ultimately all very shallow and nothing was explored in a way that was satisfactory to me.
I would have loved seeing more about both sisters in their therapy sessions and processing their trauma, but it all felt very superficial and like none of their deeper struggles were really addressed.

Overall, I just expected a lot more out of this book and was, ultimately, very bored by it.

Shred Sisters is full of family dynamic centered around the two sisters Amy and Ollie. The dramatic start to the book sets the tone between the sisters as the book dives deeper into the relationship between them.

Love reads with a strange and bizarre relationships
Intriguing read .
Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight until her stunning confidence becomes erratic and unpredictable, a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, believes in facts, proof, and the empirical world

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Grove Atlantic for a free digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book started off very strong with setting up the family dynamics that largely stayed throughout the whole book, which moves slowly through the family’s lives and deaths. Ollie is a strong personality that kept my interest the whole book, even when she wasn’t always present. There are lots of conversations and ponderings on how your childhood home environment traumatizes you in less obvious ways that influence how you react to situations in adulthood. I will say that Amy was a very passive voice in this story that didn’t do much for me personally; she was Nick and Ollie was Gatsby in terms of Ollie feeling like the MAIN character who everything revolved around. Since the book is called Shred Sisters, I would have preferred for Ollie to have been more of a character than she was—it seemed like she was mostly defined by her mental illnesses and manic episodes, only really settling down when becoming a mother, which was…a strange way to resolve the book I think. I’m personally wary of books where motherhood is posed as a solution to a character’s life problems. There was also some casual fatphobia thrown in with the main character feeling glad and superior that her ex and his wife gained weight, and I can’t tell if that’s just an in-character thing for her to think??? The storytelling method also put me off quite a bit with the character occasionally speaking with insight from the present tense and commenting on moments of her life, which I wasn’t the biggest fan of. It began to feel like the jumps in time were essentially “and then this happened, and then this happened, and then I got a different lover, and then…” which I got tired of after a while. Again, I really enjoyed the beginning, and I wish that the book had stayed there longer (or for its entirety). A dual pov with Ollie also would have been interesting. Overall, I think the movement through time in this story wasn’t executed very well, and I lost interest towards the end.

Cautious and demure, Amy could not be a greater juxtaposition to her chaotic and carefree sister Ollie. This novel delicately explores the relationship between these two extremes and the strings that weave them together.

The introduction sets the stage for the story- Ollie's recklessness landing her in the ER and Amy left to clean up the mess. In the background, communication issues between the parents. This story line is recycled throughout the book as Amy finds herself constantly trying to prove herself in the shadow of her sister's troubled lifestyle. I found this family dynamic intriguing; rather than Ollie being the "black sheep," she is revered by her parents while many of Amy's accomplishments go unnoticed.

The writing is layered and nuanced, a difficult combination to execute but done very well by Lerner. I found the story became a bit unraveled toward the end, but then again, complicated family dynamics and mental health can't always be tied up nicely with a bow.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Anything about sisters, I will devour. I absolutely loved the first third of the novel which covered Amy and Ollie's childhood and adolescence. I was totally hooked and could not put the book down as their differences became more stark. I found the jumping ahead in time slightly jarring as the story continued, but overall really enjoyed getting to see so much of their lives and the tragedies that befell them. Shred Sisters is compulsively readable, and I hope to read more of Lerner's fiction!

Unfortunately this book didn't work for me. I tried several times to pick it back up and continue reading but I was never able to stick with it. I can't say exactly what it was that didn't work out, but it just never managed to draw me in, so I DNF'd it. Thank you very much for allowing me to read the ARC!

*Shred Sisters* is a beautifully crafted and emotionally resonant story that explores the intricate dynamics of sisterhood against the backdrop of mental health struggles. The contrasting personalities of Olivia and Amy create a compelling narrative filled with tension and tenderness as they navigate their complicated bond over two decades. I truly enjoyed this book for its intimate portrayal of love, loss, and the fierce complexities of family relationships. The journey of self-acceptance that Amy undertakes, intertwined with her tumultuous relationship with her sister, makes for a deeply engaging and thought-provoking read.

A beautiful and tragic coming-of-age story that portrays dysfunctional family dynamics like no other.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one! The characters were perfectly rendered and at the end of the book, I felt like I knew these people in real life. They felt very, very real, especially Ollie.
Devoured it in a couple of sittings!

I am a very impatient reader but there was something about the theme of this book or the Shred family (because the writing is pretty straightforward) that kept reading this book. Until, after several chapters, I began to lose interest because it goes on and on without any substantial events. I like their childhood. Amy and Ollie and their parents and their struggle to deal with Ollie, but the story or storytelling didn't have much to offer. Or after a certain point, I lost the connection with the characters and the writing.

I think I requested this book because the blurb reminded me of another book about two sisters (with complicated relationship) on Netgalley, which I loved.

Sadly, I can't say I enjoyed reading Shred Sisters.

Thank you very much for the copy.

A solid debut that delves into the prickly and fickle nature of sisterhood, mental illness, and growing up as a glass child. I found this compulsively readable and I flew through it within 24 hours. Thematically it reminded me a lot of Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino which I also loved.

The book follows the Shred family who exists on tenuous grounds due to their eldest daughter Olivia. She's impulsive, prone to causing trouble, and impossible to control. The book is written from the perspective of her youngest sibling Amy who often gets forgotten amidst the turmoil - she is the quintessential definition of a glass child. While I found Amy somewhat bland and passive, her story arc is a late bloomer that becomes well-fleshed out in the latter half.

I would have appreciated a few chapters from Ollie's perspective - she was so intriguing, and her experiences in institutions during the 1970s/1980s would have been a valuable addition given how poorly mental health was understood and treated then. She remains a bit of an enigma as the book progresses and I think slightly more nuance could have been provided to her behaviors and the manifestation of her bipolar disorder.

Shred Sisters offers a simplistic premise and minimal cast of characters but executes them both quite well. The ending veers a tiny bit into the cheesy territory, but it is wholesome and warranted enough that I truly didn't mind. I always enjoy books that capture the messiness of family and how our formative years can define our relationships and patterns of behavior into adulthood. If the premise intrigues you, I think you'll find this to be a solid read! Thanks to the publisher for the e-ARC.

The second Shred Sisters came across my radar, I knew it was a book I needed to devour immediately. In this debut novel, Lerner places readers right at the center of a family rapidly deteriorating and shows us just how mental illness is an invisible string that effects everyone it touches. On the surface, Shred Sisters appears to be a story about mental illness but, more than that, it is a coming of age story about family, friendship, and the importance of not being a perfect human. I was wildly impressed with how many layers there were to this story and these characters. Lerner does a fantastic job at emphasizing the nuances of mental illness and the ways in which mental illness not only physically challenges families and relationships but also the ways mental illness impacts the subconscious, especially over long periods of time. I loved how human Amy Shred's character was and felt very connected to her all throughout. The fact that there were no definitive diagnoses assigned to any of these characters, but rather we gain understanding of their struggles purely through their behaviors and actions is something I rarely feel we get to see in fiction tackling mental health. My only disappointment while reading was that I did feel the pacing got a little rushed towards the end of the book. Lerner truly could have written 100 more pages and I would have fully been seated to continue reading. For anyone who has read and loved All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky, I think you will really love Shred Sisters as well!

Endless thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for allowing me access to an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

it was very unfortunate that this was a dnf for me it wasn't because the book was bad, it just wasn't for me. thank you to the publisher/s for the free copy, i truly appreciate it.

My thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and author for an advanced review copy.

Shred sisters follows the Shred family, but focuses on the two sisters, Amy and Ollie. Amy is smart, but a bit of an outcast at times. Ollie is a wild child who ends up living a vagrant life as a sometimes drug addict. Amy is the narrator, and I found myself being able to relate to her and her relationship with Ollie, as I have been through some of the same things with my own sister. As we follow Amy from childhood to adulthood, she tells the story of her family, both the good and bad. This isn't one of those happy-go-lucky type of books, but there is some hope. Seeing Amy go from a wounded child to an adult who comes into herself, though not quite in an easy way was my favorite thing about this story. I also feel that it looks at how one person and their actions can change an entire family. I enjoyed this book quite a bit and I'm glad I got to know the Shred Sisters.

Look for this one October 1, 2024!