Can Coco Mellors write a bad book? I don't think so. I just love when you can tell that an author really loves her characters – that comes through in this book so well, and each of the Blue sisters was interesting, real and flawed, but the lens you see them through makes you root for them every step of the way, despite their mistakes. I think the central theme of sisterhood coupled with their shared journeys of grief and addiction made this an even more powerful read than 'C&F' for me.

After the loss of one of their sisters, each of the remaining sisters lean on addictive behaviors to cope. When their parents make the decision to sell the deceased sister's old apartment, the three remaining girls unite to clear out the place. This brings back up emotions that have been long been simmering underneath the surface and secrets are revealed. Can they heal together, or will this drive them even farther apart? That's the big question in this book, and it explores not only grief, but the cycle of addiction and generational trauma created in families.

I think I lean closer to a 4 than a 5 on this because there are points where I felt I was kept at arms-length with the emotion? More telling than showing me what I needed to know. But it is a spectacular, powerful and genuine read with a lot of heart and I can't wait to buy a copy.

I wanted to see what the Coco Mellors buzz was about and her novel Blue Sisters did not disappoint. Told in short chapters with multiple character narration, Blue Sisters is a page turner which handles serious subject matter with grace and sophistication.

This novel about three sisters mourning the recent death of their late fourth sister has very sympathetic and realistic characters dealing with grief, loneliness, substance abuse, inherited trauma, and pain, both physical and mental. It is at times a challenging reading experience, intense and stressful, but is ultimately cathartic and hopeful.

In addition to addiction, recovery, and grief, Mellors also tackles subjects like the misunderstood pain of endometriosis, which should be applauded and I wish were covered by more authors, as well as the courage it takes as a women to choose to remain childless against societal pressures, a topic that is very relevant today.

In Mellor’s Blue Sisters, we struggle along with these complex characters as they strive to fix themselves, we see ourselves and our loved ones in them, and we root for them as they find their own way to the other side.

It’s a beautiful representation of sisterhood and the strength of women, well written and thoroughly engaging.

This is my first book by Mellors and it absolutely won’t be my last. I love a good character driven novel and I felt like these characters were written so incredibly well. There was still a good plot happening, but it’s more slower paced, which was fine by me! I loved getting to know Avery, Bonnie and Lucky and see their struggles, breakthroughs and memories of their childhood with an alcoholic father and apathetic mother. This book dives into a lot of heavy topics like addiction, grief, infidelity and family dynamics and I thought they were all done extremely well. As heavy as the book is at times, I thought it ended on a very hopeful note. If you like a good character driven novel with complicated family dynamics, this one might be for you!
CW: mentions of animal death, infidelity, drug use, alcoholism, death, rape, violence

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for an advanced digital reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was hesitant about this book, but I decided to give it a chance. It tells the story of four sisters and how they deal with grief after one of them dies. Avery, the eldest, considers herself the most responsible until she experiences a personal revelation. Bonnie, the second eldest, is a fighter; she discovered Nikki's body after an overdose and blames herself. Nikki, the third sister, suffered from endometriosis and turned to drugs for relief, ultimately dying from pills contaminated with Fentanyl. Lucky, the youngest, struggles with substance abuse and her career as a model, and is deeply affected by Nikki's death. The narrative centers on the sisters' grief and their inability to move on a year later. I recommend this book to all readers.

Three sisters reunite in New York City to go through the belongings of a fourth sister who has recently died from an (accidental? not sure) overdose. All the sisters have issues--Avery just cheated on her wife, Bonny just beat up a guy, Lucky is a trainwreck. Yeah, I get that much of this is due to grief from the loss of their sister, and reflecting on how messed up their upbringing was, but I found the characters unlikable and didn't want to spend any more time with them.

My favorite part was the sister dynamic and how relatable it was at times. The rotating POVs kept the plot interesting and somewhat faster paced, but I think it could’ve given more. The story was really good at taking you through raw sadness, witty banter, and hopefulness

While this book had some smart writing and important themes it fell a bit flat for me. Perhaps it was my high expectations based on the buzz or less relatable because I don’t have sisters? But I would certainly recommend it to others interested in a family drama.

This wasn't terrible, but not very memorable for me either. The sisters feel a bit cliche, with the type 1 oldest sister, partying wild child youngest, and peacemaker middle child. And all of them being remarkable; a model at 15, a world class boxing champ, etc, feels somewhat unrealistic and makes them feel like characters more than real people.

I'm sure plenty of people will love this, but it was too character driven for my personal taste and I found myself often getting a bit bored hearing so many details about each sister's past and day to day life. But the prose was decent enough and I thought the sisterly bonds were nice.

3.5/5 ⭐️
Coco Mellors writting is a pleasure to read, I am part of an all female sibling pack so this book is very relatable to me in that sense, this is a sisterhood sweet book that will bring sadness, happiness and all emotions jn between. Thanks. NetGalley for this ARC.

Little Women in the Age of Addiction

Like the March sisters of Lousia May Alcott’s Victorian classic, there are four modern Blue sisters, and each has a personality matching one of Alcott’s creations:
Avery, the eldest, an attorney, is the sensible one who looks after her sisters in the psychological absence of their parents.
Bonnie, the boyish one, is a boxer, strong-willed, stoic, yet soft-spoken.
Nicky, the sweet and sensitive one, has a knack for female friendship and suffers an early death.
And Lucky, the youngest, is the artistic one, sharp-witted and secretly shy.

Their story, however, is far from the Victorian niceties of the March family: addictions dominate their lives.
Early on, the prologue gives snapshots of them and the fact that the book begins on the first-year anniversary of Nicky’s death from a fentanyl-laced overdose. Nicky, however, was not the addict in the family – she suffered from intense and almost constant pain of endometriosis, which nothing short of a hysterectomy could control. But Nicky wanted children more than she wanted pain relief, and died having neither.
Her sisters’ reactions to her death, their grief and their growth, are the heart of the book.

Avery, 33, married to a woman therapist, living in London, finds herself returning to the addictive behavior she thought she had recovered from 10 years before. She is drinking, smoking, stealing, and having casual heterosexual sex.
Bonnie, 31, is a former champion boxer, the most disciplined yet gentlest of the sisters. She left the ring following Nicky’s death to work as a bouncer at a club, and has lost her beloved career path as well as her sister.
Lucky, 27, is a world-class model, who leads an appalling lifestyle of abusing drugs, alcohol, and sex.

When the book opens, the three surviving sisters, once so close, have rarely spoken and have not seen each other in the year since Nicky’s death. They reunite when their parents decide to sell the small NYC apartment the family shared for years.

All are at the lowest points in their lives, both physically and emotionally. There is some explicit sex, both lesbian and heterosexual, and disturbing details of drug and alcohol addiction. There also are deeply wounding words as their loss overwhelms the sisters’ love for each other.
And yet – while the paths they take can be painful, their experiences are absorbing, believable, and reward the reader with a sense of hope. This can be a wrenching story, but it is so well-written that it is definitely one worth reading.

SYNOPSIS: Three wildly different sisters are dealing with the unexpected death of their 4th sister. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction and their careers, they find themselves returning to New York to face the sale of the apartment they were raised in. As the sisters deal with their loss of their sister who held them together and the disappointments of their childhood, they must face the realities within themselves.

While this was a beautiful story about grief and family, I found it to be a bit slow for my liking. Each chapter is very long which isn’t a format I particularly enjoy. It took me awhile to get into this book and I almost stopped reading it completely a few times.

It wasn’t my favorite but I did really enjoy the characters in this book. As someone who didn’t grow up with sisters, I was very intrigued by the bond these sisters had with each other. An unspoken connection that holds them together no matter how drastically different they are, or where they’re at in life. It was both sad and inspirational seeing them all navigate their loss in different ways which resulted in them facing truths about themselves. I think if I had been raised with sisters, I may have been able to relate deeper to this book and what it was all about.

I adored the theme of family in this book. Family is such a good mirror that forces you to look inward on yourself and I think this book portrayed that in such a great way. From start to finish each of the 3 sisters had massive growth and realizations about themselves and that was refreshing to see. Coco Mellors really does have such a beautiful way of writing and making these characters come to life.

Overall, I’d recommend this book. It’s more about the slow storytelling and building the depth of these characters vs being a page turner but the reviews for it are really good, so although it wasn’t necessarily my favorite I think it’s worth a read!!

This book is not only painfully boring but just said a hysterectomy is a cure for endometriosis. Please stop writing about chronic pain conditions that you know NOTHING about. I am tired of having to go on a soap box advocating for myself because authors love to write about things they don’t have the facts for.
Endometriosis is a condition where tissue SIMILAR to the lining of the uterus grows outside of the uterus. This tissue is not the same. Endometriosis can occur in women who don’t have a uterus. A hysterectomy is not a cure. Please let’s do better and stop spreading false information therefore making it more difficult for myself and others to find appropriate care and research.

I loved this book! This was my first experience with Coco Mellors and it was fantastic. It's a character-focused story where we follow 3 sisters grieving the tragic loss of the 4th sister. All the sisters are different and are developed so well, they feel like real people just going through life the best way they can, which isn't great because they didn't have the best family life growing up or parental support, so they really don't have the skills to cope or process their trauma. We see them destroy themselves in different ways, but it's not all doom and gloom. They eventually do come through the other side and it's just wonderful to see. I really, really enjoyed this.

From the first few pages of Blue Sisters, I was completely bought into this story about three sisters dealing with the death of their fourth sister a year after she died. The characters were expertly crafted- each of them felt like real people, with real flaws, backstories, and issues, and I was tearing through the book to find out what would happen with all of their individual plots, as well as the larger intersecting story between the sisters.

4.25 stars

This was a book about grief, family, figuring out who you are, and the very complicated relationship between sisters.
I had a little bit of a hard time with this book because the characters were so flawed. It was hard to root for them when they just kept making mistake after mistake and I just wanted to shake them. It was, however, incredibly realistic and relatable. Real people are very flawed and not always likeable so I did like that this is how the characters were portrayed.
Also, not a whole lot happens in this book (again, this is kind of the point). It switches back and forth from past to present which was a little confusing because it wasn’t always clearly defined.
However, I did think this was a beautifully written book about learning how to deal with the loss of a family member all while figuring out who you are (at all stages of life) and maintaining/fixing/creating a relationship with your family

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the ARC

I really enjoyed this story of the Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors. She got me engaged right at the beginning of the story of a family and how losing one sister impacts them all. I appreciated her depiction of addiction and recovery and how no character was all good or all bad. Each character is doing the best they can with the skills and scars that impact their lives.

The empathy the author shows for her characters makes them feel more authentic and makes the story richer for me.

Rounding up from a 4.5
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion. I look forward to other titles by this author.

Compelling story of sisters, grief, addiction and recovery. Coco Mellors writes characters that leap off the page and grab you by the collar. I couldn’t put this one down.

Review Brought to You By An ONLY Child! "Blue Sisters" by Coco Mellors dives deep into family dynamics, especially the messy, beautiful, and sometimes heart-wrenching bond between sisters. As an only child, I personally found it hard to connect with the sibling-centric story, but for those who get their cup filled by tales of sisterhood, this book is spot-on (I imagine).

Mellors touches on familiar themes from her previous book, "Cleopatra & Frankenstein," like addiction, absent parents, and the rollercoaster ride of losing and finding oneself. The way she explores addiction continues to be raw and real, and the backdrop of NYC is always my favorite: adding a vibrant, gritty edge to the narrative. The book also delves into the complexities of motherhood, identity, and rebirth. Mellors captures these themes with a mix of subtlety and obviousness that somehow works. If you're into stories about family struggles, the highs and lows of addiction, and the journey of self-discovery, you'll find "Blue Sisters" a compelling read.

While it didn’t hit me as hard as "Cleopatra & Frankenstein," it’s still a solid 3.5 stars in my book. Definitely worth the read if you love sibling drama, NYC/London vibes, and heartfelt journeys of personal growth.

Blue Sisters is the devastating and gritty story of three sisters - Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky - a year after losing their sister, Nicky. When their mom emails them on the anniversary of her death stating her intention to sell their childhood home, the sisters are confronted with their grief in an entirely new way.

This is a story about grief, addiction, sisterhood, and family. What it means to be your own family and how to build it back up after tragedy, and if that's even possible.

I was first intrigued by this book because of the cover. But when I read that it's about four sisters and addiction, I knew I had to read it. I'm the youngest of four sisters. I watched my beloved sister struggle with addiction for years. I knew it would be a tough read for me but I am so happy I was able to get through it. I am so happy my sister is 12 years clean and thriving.

Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky each dealt(or not dealt) with their grief in different ways. All of them infuriating and all of them heartbreaking. I was rooting so hard for these girls. The ending was a bit rushed and I think I hated the way the epilogue ended but I really just love these sisters SO MUCH that I can forgive it.

Thank you Penguin Random House and NetGalley for the ARC copy in exchange for an honest review!

This book deals with the difficult complexities of a family with 4 sisters in it who are not close to their parents. Then one dies and 3 sisters are left grieving while trying to move on with their lives. All the sisters seem to be well written, they live their lives all over the world and not near each other and their relationships with each other aren't easy. Unlike some books I've read recently it was very easy to see each sister's differences and personality while also seeing that they all at 1 time or another have had issues with drugs. While I appreciate how this book is written for me it was so slow and boring. I found myself checking to see how far I was in the book and being bummed it wasn't almost over. I even went and looked at the reviews to see if others were feeling this way. This book mostly has 4 and 5 starts and the ones that gave it lest are in the minority.
If you like a book about 4 sisters and how complex, nasty and loving they can be I bet you will like this book. Sadly it wasn't for me and I have been looking forward to reading it for months.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.