Such an interesting book! Very well-written and engaging. I loved the story and different character relationships. Kept me reading!

Thank you NetGalley and Coco Mellors!

I absolutely loved Blue Sisters. I read it on the beach and couldn't stop thinking about it, even tearing my eyes away from the beautiful scenery to keep reading. This is my kind of book– complicated women, loss, redemption, mistakes, and the unique, singular relationship sisters provide us. It gave me that rare feeling that all these fictional characters exist in the world, and I could look them up on social media to see where they are now. I will recommend it to all my friends, and I have pre-ordered multiple copies for my library! Thank you for the ARC.

Loved this book about three sisters returning to New York City to grieve the loss of their fourth sister, each navigating their own imploding lives. Gorgeously written, the book had interesting things to say about difficult family dynamics and addiction.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing the ARC in return for an honest review.

I was ecstatic when I received my ARC. This book is what everyone has been talking about!

For those who are going to read this book, please take note of the trigger warnings in the book including addiction, pedophilia, and sexual harassment.

Blue Sisters, the four sisters on the cover, are Avery, Bonnie, Nicole (also known as Nicky), and Lucky. With a year having passed since Nicky's death, the three remaining sisters found themselves still dealing with grief and a feeling of loss, uncertain about how to move forward in their lives without one of them.

I cried a couple of times reading this. The four sisters had such distinct personalities, but they always had something that connected them with each other.

Avery always acted so strong, and constantly had this pressure that she had to be perfect so that her sisters could depend on her. Before doing what she wants, she always makes sure that her sisters are well taken care of.

"Before Bonnie could reach her, Avery had hoisted herself up to reach her and Bonnie wished that just once, she would ask for a hand." - This practically sums up how Avery is.

Bonnie is portrayed as the stable sister, but I find her character the least interesting. It's not because she didn't face challenging situations—she certainly did. However, her personality comes across as bland. Her world mainly revolves around boxing and her sisters, but beyond that, there isn't anything particularly special about her.

Nicky, or Nicole, the sister who passed away, had been suffering from pain all her life. It was not until later that she was diagnosed, but the solution to end her pain was not something that she could do. Even with so much pain inside her, Nicky was portrayed as a loving character who warmed those who were close to her.

As for Lucky... Lucky made me cry a lot. Lucky is the youngest, the baby, but she also had to deal with so much from such a young age.

"Lucky never really acted like her body was her own, Avery thought fleetingly; it had been made public property too young."

When their mother informed the sisters that she would be selling the apartment they grew up in, which is also the place where Nicky lived before she died, the sisters went to New York to prevent the sale from happening. However, as the three of them got together again, the loss of Nicky became even more clear.

"They were meant to be a four, and all being together without Nicky only made it worse.

While trying their best (and mostly failing) to solve their own individual problems, the three Blue sisters also had to find a way to support each other through their grief. Will Avery be honest with her sisters and stop pretending she had such a perfect life? Will Bonnie stop making excuses after her defeat and start fighting again as a boxer? Will Lucky figure out what she wants to do with her life?

Blue Sisters is captivating, heart-wrenching, and brilliant all at once. It is a story about family, grief, and addiction, written beautifully by Coco Mellors. I can't wait for what Coco has in store for us next!

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Blue Sisters is a beautifully written story about family, grief, addiction, and growth.
The sisters are flawed but endearing, and I found myself equally invested in each of their journeys. One of my favorite books of 2024 so far.

I loved this story of three, formerly four sisters. I am an only child but I think the relationships between the sisters were inspiring and the unwavering love they have for one another despite all their humanness and messiness was so raw and real. I love how the mom is portrayed as well. She has a tough relationship with her kids but we end up getting to see her as human too just trying to do her best.

As a huge fan of Mellors' first novel "Cleopatra and Frankenstein," I was nervous to have such high expectations for "Blue Sisters." Thankfully, I was not disappointed. Mellors has such a way with relatable character development even when you have absolutely nothing in common with the characters. This novel explored sisterhood, grief, and self-destruction and redemption so gorgeously and realistically. Be prepared with some tissues if emotional books get to you, but trust me, it's worth it.

My favorite book of 2024 (and will be surprised if it's dethroned in the next 6 months)- I'll be recommending it to everyone this year, and likely picking it up for my store.

The Blue Sisters are all talented in their own areas and while deeply connected to each other they have seemingly no relationship with their parents. While grieving the loss of one sister they struggle to feel whole personally and as a group without her. The book is very character driven yet felt a bit aimless. While the prose was strong, I didn’t crave wanting to understand more about the sisters which made it easy for me to take breaks and read other books in between chapters.

this one was really, really profound. as an older sister, a lot of averys perspective hit home so hard for me. i wasn’t a huge fan of cleopatra and frankenstein, but this definitely made up for it. i can’t wait to read what mellors puts out next!

Blue Sisters is a heartfelt tale of three sisters reuniting after the sudden death of their fourth sister. The story is told in a multiple narrative POV and changes per chapter which works very well to not only move everything along, but also to give more insight and detail into the lives of each sister. This book deals with topics of addiction, self-identity, and loss. If generational family trauma is your thing, Blue Sisters is the book for you. While still being a moving book, this had no shortage of layers to their family trauma. Lucky, Bonnie, and Avery grieve the loss of Nicky who passed of a drug overdose just one year ago. Each grieving the loss in their own complicated way.

I found Blue Sisters to be relatable to anyone who grew up with any sort of family. Coco’s writing in this is absolutely beautiful.

Thank you Ballantine Books and NetGalley for the digital ARC!

This is the best book I’ve read this year.
This is also the first book in my life that made me cry. Coco Mellors writing touched the deepest buried emotions of mine. There is one line from this book that will stay with me forever.
I thought I just needed more time to write the review but I see that the more I loved it the more difficult it is to write review.
I savoured every single word, I loved those characters, I felt for them, I cared for them and got my heart broken for them.

Blue Sisters grabs you from the get go. I went into this book blind, which is my favorite way to read. It easy to see the small ties to Little Women, but it completely holds its own. A few trigger warnings.

I read this book directly after The Most Fun We Ever Had which also centers on four sisters but in a wildly different way. Like that book, I appreciated how real these characters were. They were all distinctly themselves and unique in a way that almost felt unlikely to me but added to the narrative. I never read Mellor’s other, widely popular novel. I enjoyed her writing a lot. It was skilled and I could sense the pain of the sisters and their own mental battles. I had the most difficult time connecting with Bonnie. I also wish there had been more depth around their upbringing/parents. The stint where the mother appears at the end was not enough for me. I could have done without the epilogue. It felt cheesy to me and I actually liked how it ended with Avery swimming. All in all, I will recommend this to my friends.

A story about grief and love and sisterhood, about four sisters but told from the perspective of 3 of them. The story begins a year after the sister has died of a drug overdose and then centers around how they’ve dealt with their grief (poorly) and how the one-year-anniversary brings them back together. I really loved all the sisters and loved the multiple POV and the flashbacks to their life with their sister. I misunderstood one of the flashbacks and thought that one of the sisters supplied her with the narcotic that she OD’d on and spent most of the book expecting that to be the climax and had to go back and reread that part to see what I missed. Because of that, I think the climax of the story fell flat for me. It’s interesting to read a story where what would probably be the climax, has already happened. Thanks to Netgally & co for the ARC. I was so excited to get this one!

I was desperate to read this book and I am so glad I got to read an early copy thanks to NetGalley. As the oldest of four siblings, I love reading stories of sibling relationships and Coco really got the complexity of those dynamics on the page. I loved how unique each of the sisters were and how they jumped off the page as well rounded, fully crafted characters. I didn't take to Cleopatra & Frankenstein the first time I tried reading it but this book has made me a Coco Mellors fan. I can't wait to read more!

As an only child I love sister stories. Maybe somewhere inside I always wished I had sisters. But this one just didn’t grab me. It felt repetitive and overwritten. The author establishes some basic facts about the characters in the first few pages (four sisters turn to unhealthy parental figures and addictions to cope with absentee parents and alcoholic dad) then treads and retreads over them for another 300+ pages. There are parts of this book that are lovely and the author does do some wonderful character work. But overall this book felt short on substance and long on formulaic arcs that we see playing out from a mile away. As soon as we learn that Avery rushed into a marriage with her therapist we know she’s going to leave the marriage. As soon as we learn that Bonnie quit boxing because she’s in love with her coach we know they’ll wind up together. Sometimes it’s fun to be ahead of the story to have the pleasure of watching it play out but this was not one of those cases because it felt like we kept getting the same information, in the same way, multiple times. This would have been a better book at a leaner length.

Coco Mellors captured the complexities of grief beautifully in this book. I read “Cleopatra & Frankenstein” last year and rated it a 3, I wasn’t the biggest fan of it and some pieces of that story felt very unrealistic. In contrast, the ways the Blue sisters’ lives unfold in the midst of their grief are aligned with a lot of the real feelings and self destructive behaviors that accompany rebuilding post-loss. The depiction of sisterhood was heartwarming and funny at times. Each sister has a distinctive voice and I found myself looking forward to each of their stories in their chapters. This was one of my favorite reads so far this year. This story is a true example of what I love most about literary fiction, the ability to feel connected to characters in mundane day to day feelings and experiences. Would definitely recommend those who didn’t love her last book to give this one a chance!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6471729509

I am such a Coco Mellors fan.

This is such a beautiful look at family, addiction, and grief. The book is a dive into the lives of three sisters a year after their fourth sister, Nicky, died of an overdose. They each blame themselves for parts of her death and their individual lives are suffering because of it. Each character is written in such a different way and was developed so thoroughly.

While Cleopatra and Frankstien wasn’t my favorite read, I could tell I loved Mellors writing style and character development. I was so excited for this book and the topic at hand and it surpassed all of my expectations.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the advanced copy as this is one to definitely look out for come September.

I loved this book! Coco Mellors has such a beautiful way of writing and developing her stories. I’m an enormous fan of literature exploring any type of family dynamic. Nothing hits quite like a tale of sisters. I resonated mostly with the eldest sister in this case. 4 stars!

I really enjoyed this book. The writing was beautiful and I will definitely pick up more of Coco Mellors' books in the future. I loved the development of each of the characters and the connections that they had to each other. I also think that the way that grief was portrayed was well done because people go through it differently and that was shown. Overall, I recommend this book!