While I appreciated Mellors' grappling with grief, pain, and addiction, ultimately the characters felt too flat and "typed" for me to connect.

Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors captivated me with its raw and beautifully layered characters, making each page feel alive with emotion. Mellors' storytelling had me invested from the start, and I loved how the novel explored the complexities of sisterhood and self-discovery.

I enjoyed this lively saga of sisters. It felt very contemporary and was much like a streaming serial I'd love to watch on television for the escapism and family drama! I also appreciated the fact that each sister was so different and OH SO DRAMATIC! Please keep us posted so that we can be sure to watch for it to sell. But not Nicole Kidman, Ok?

Beautifully written and poignant. Domestic drama, slice of life contemporary that deals with life, loss, and love. Deeply relatable and moving. Just a beautiful, memorable story that was equal parts humorous and heartfelt

I knew how unbelievable this book would be well before I even started the first page. It in no way disappointed. I was raised with all brothers, and these characters have so much depth that I could be convinced they're my own sisters. I also lost my younger sibling years ago, so this really picked at a scab and left me raw. I cried and I also felt like maybe a few things healed, too. I will come back to this book so many times.

“Avery had previously thought love was built on large, visible gestures, but a marriage turned out to be the accrual of ordinary, almost inconsequential, acts of daily devotion..." ⁣
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This book was the perfect example of loving a book of unlikable characters. I don't need to loooove each character in a book in order to love a book. What I do need is to have the 'why', why is this character making these poor choices, 'why' is this character the way they are - and Coco Mellors does that. By the end I considered these sisters people I knew and I understood why each of them was so different and complex.⁣
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Blue Sisters made for so much to discuss in this month's #ReadWithToni chat: sibling relationships, sibling order playing a role in their core conditioning, parental neglect and abandonment, coming of age, addiction, endometriosis, grief.⁣
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Have you read anything by Coco Mellors? How do you feel about unlikable characters?

Loved this book about sisters....how they are different and the same, and how their relationships are complicated and fierce. There is a lot of truth here about their relationships, but also about parenting, love, substance abuse, and how unfortunately, we often hurt those that we hold closest. Highly recommended if you love deep character studies.

Holy moly this is a BOOK. This book follows 3 sisters after the death of their baby sister and how they navigate understanding their grief, grappling with their upbringing, struggling with addiction, and finding themselves in a very broken and sad story. You feel so much compassion and sadness for these flawed but amazing characters and are truly rooting for each one’s success. The ending had me tearing up and was a perfect sappy bow to a very sorrowful story. The Blue sisters will touch you - can’t recommend this enough. Lots more to discuss too, would be a great book club book

Coco Mellor’s has mastered not only writing beautifully, but fleshing out characters in a way that’s messy and real, while allowing you to fall in love with them at the same time. Flaws and all. I liked how we jumped between sisters and were able to learn about and experience Nicki as a sister even though she had already died by the start of the book.

This is a family I loved to experience and also felt like I was a part of. My only complaint is that I wanted more, I felt like I could’ve read another 300 pages about this family and where they all ended up.

I think having more limited characters than Cleo & Frankenstein made Blues Sisters even more successful because we were able to connect with the sisters more fully than we did with the characters of Cleo and Frank - that being said I loved both books for different reasons and am now for sure an auto buyer of anything Coco Mellors writes.

Coco Mellors is a truly gifted writer. Her newest novel honestly covered some heavy topics, and subject matter but after reading it I feel so much lighter! Addiction, loss, self sabotage and manipulation; just to name a few. This is a beautiful story that everyone can relate to in someway or another and I hope everyone reads it!

I received an E -ARC of this title from NetGalley. This review is honest, unbiased, and completely my own.

A year after the death of their sister, Nicky, the remaining Blue sisters are brought together to empty her belongings from their childhood apartment. As they navigate their grief they begin to realize how their relationships with each other, and with themselves, have changed over the past year.

This book was absolutely beautiful. Mellors created characters with incredible depth. All three sisters were completely different and fit perfectly within their little group. They were each filled with flaws, but had grown so much by the end of this book. If you don't enjoy character driven books, you might not enjoy this one as much, but if you do enjoy them, this is basically a masterclass.

The chapters alternate pov's between each sister, but you still get to know so much about the intricacies of each Blue. You could really feel their emotions alongside of them. Even though they weren't always super likeable, you could still understand why they did they things they did.

Obviously this book will be relatable to those with sisters, but I think there's a little something for everyone in this book even if you don't have sisters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the ARC!

It’s one year after their sister overdoses and the Blue sisters are not coping with the loss. From London to LA, the three remaining sisters are each in a solitary self-destructive downward spiral. This is where Coco Mellors’ “The Blue Sisters” begins. As the first person narrative changes between Avery, Bonnie and Lucky, the reader gets a real and raw view in to each of their inner dialogues and motives. The sibling dynamics are complex, delivering cuts so deep - only someone that’s known you your whole life can hurt you so much - but there’s always unconditional love.
“Everyone is addicted to something.” This is a central theme of the novel - how to get clean, how to heal, how to say the things left unsaid and what should we believe in? The story moves quickly and is engrossing. I listened to half the book on audio and did not enjoy the narrators style. I thought it was a really choppy and abrupt reading and would recommend the novel to read, not listen.

I am not sure if I wasn’t in the mood for this kind of lit fic book or rather if it just isn’t for me. I can see why others have felt connected to this story, it just didn’t quite work for me. I hope to try Coco’s other works and see if it’s the story or the prose.

Blue Sisters definitely has a Little Women vibe going on since the story focuses on four sisters -- Avery, Bonnie, Nicky, and Lucky Blue. It is the year after Nicky's untimely death, and the sisters' parents are ready to sell the NYC apartment where the girls grew up and where Nicky died.

The story starts off with the year anniversary of Nicky's death and how each sister has dealt with this loss. Coco Mellors does a good job of showing the complicated bonds among sisters, but I found the amount of gratuitous sex tiring.

Sisterhood will always be a fascinating (and complicated) subject, and while Mellors hit the mark many times, there were points in the book where I felt that the characters seemed one-dimensional.

An interesting look at a Little Women" type of story -- I only wish for a more in-depth look into the lives of each sister.

Thank you to #NetGalley for an electronic ARC of #BlueSisters and to #Ballantine Books.

This novel is about three sisters in their 20s/30s, all of whom are mourning the death of the fourth sister, and each has their own problems as well. It’s both a family drama and a character novel, and it’s excellent at both.

Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky are all such original characters, all flawed but you still root for them, and they really come to life in the book (as does their deceased sister Nicky just from them talking about her). It’s really quite a sad book in a lot of ways, grappling with messed up family dynamics, addiction, self-destructive behavior, guilt, and more. And yet, it was the hopeful note it ends on that left me in tears. And I can see why Read With Jenna picked it as there is a lot to talk about it contained within - looking forward to discussing with my book club.

4.25 stars

🧶 THE SUMMARY:
The three surviving Blue sisters, scattered across the globe, reunite on the anniversary of their sister Nicky’s death. Since her accidental overdose, the family—the sisters and their mother—has struggled to stay connected, realizing too late that Nicky was the glue holding them together. As each sister battles her own personal struggles, they begin to understand that healing together may be the best way to honor Nicky’s memory.

💁🏻‍♀️ MY THOUGHTS:
🔸 I’ll be honest—this one is heavy. The author’s previous novel leaned toward dramatically represented, albeit tragic, characters and chaotic storytelling, making it easier to enjoy the dysfunction from a distance. This time, though, the characters are just as flawed, but Mellors pulls you in and makes you care about them, even as they self-destruct. Addiction plays a major role, and I appreciated how the book explores its generational impact across the family.

🔸 While literary fiction often favors character development over plot, I was pleasantly surprised by the strong narrative arc that gave this story a family-drama feel. The multi-POV approach worked beautifully, offering insight into each sister’s experience without dragging the pace. I also loved the epilogue—it tied things up without being too neat, giving the kind of closure that felt earned.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

i was so very excited to grab this one. it was my first mellors and i still think i will grab other books by her but this one didnt live up to the hype i had in my head from the synopsis. it just ended up being "okay" the story wasnt bad but it also wasnt great. i think the third person narrative didnt allow for a deep connection. this is definitely a ME problem, i am very much not a third person girlie. it has to be done juuuuust right. the build up was just too slow by the time we got to the meat of the story with the sisters together it had lost me.

overall: if you like a third person narrative with a slow build grab it i dont think you will be disappointed

Four sisters with their own struggles, but when one passes away all three are left mourning their fourth sister. The sisters are navigating grief and addiction so there are heavy subjects involved, which I recommend looking up all trigger warnings before reading.

One thing we didn't get to see is the relationship as sisters develop all together. I know siblings go through their ups and downs but there was so much friction whenever they were together. I felt like all three of the sisters barely got to truly spend time together, and if they did they always had something to argue about.

All I know is reading this made me really miss my brother because we had something way bigger than "sisterhood". We were permanently attached at the hip, best friends that never ever even fought like these sisters did. Maybe it was just frustrating to read about the fighting between these sisters, because the relationship I had with my brother had all the ups and never had any downs like the sisters did in this book.

I do love Coco Mellors' writing and she automatically became an auto-buy author for me after reading Cleo+Frank, which is still my favorite of hers. Overall, I still enjoyed this one and I think an adaptation would be even better!

I loved everything about this book -- it was not an easy read due to the subject matter but I enjoyed every bit of it.

It has been a year since the fourth of the Blue sisters died, and the remaining three sisters are trying to figure out what their lives look like without their fourth.

I loved each of the sisters so much, and was rooting for each of them as we see them make crucial life changing decisions.

This made me so curious to know what Coco Mellors's relationship to addiction and alcoholism is -- she writes it so well from every angle.

This is my first book by her and I am eager to read her debut novel and excited to read what she writes next!

I would recommend this to anyone who likes family dramas, really strong characters and doesn't shy away from hard topics.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!

I really thought that I was going to like this book, but it turns out that wasn’t the case. I just got tired of reading about addiction and more addiction, and it seemed to really drag at times. I didn’t like any of the sisters, and what happened to them really didn’t matter to me.

I gave 3 stars instead of 2 because I liked the title, I liked the cover, and the last fourth of the book was a little more interesting.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.