Much like the Super Bowl performance by Kendrick Lamar wasn’t made for me, Listen to Your Sister by Neena Viel wasn’t made for me. The black experience is very important here. I will offer you my honest thoughts but a black person will find things I didn’t know I was missing.

This story is what happens when a sister takes sacrificing herself to help her brothers to a whole new level. It’s hard to pin down the sub-genre because it goes beyond the confines of our world but is still anchored to it. The mysterious entities are restricted to the human experience but not our version reality. Time, reality, and consciousness get a little bendy here.

Viel does a great job making me, a middle aged white woman, understand these characters and why they make the choices they do. I dislike Jamie and Dre as people but I appreciate them as characters.

How much is Jamie a victim of his circumstances, his parents, his choices, his youthful sense of invincibility, or society as a whole? I fully believe this conversation is part of what Viel is trying to do. Can you change your station when all you’ve know and all society sees is an impoverished criminal?

Race, gender, crime, poverty, choice, familial obligation, trauma. There is so much to dive into. Enjoy is the wrong word. A lot of my own trauma points were pushed by this book.

I had strong feelings and a vested interest. The characters are flawed but well developed. The writing is good. There are so many pieces I highlighted because I enjoyed how Viel used language. It’s dark and brutal with an excellent execution. This is a powerful debut and I look forward to more from Viel in the future. 4/5

Creepy, funny, and a little all over the place... but in a good way??

This book snuck up on me in a way only horror can. So it's definitely creepy, full of dread, but also weirdly funny in a way that makes the unsettling parts hit even harder. The story jumps between three siblings, which isn't something I usually like. (I guess I'm easily confuse?) But I'm this book, each character feels like a distinctly different perspective, and you get a full picture of the family’s history and trauma without it feeling repetitive.

The writing is sharp, and the social commentary never feels forced, but the pacing is a little messy. The first half drags in spots, especially when it circles back to the same ideas a few too many times, and then the second half goes off the rails in a way that’s both exciting and kind of disorienting.

One thing that really stuck with me was how the supernatural elements creep into the most normal moments. There’s one scene with a totally ordinary household object that really got me. It wasnt, like, some big, dramatic scare, but because it was just *wrong* in a way I couldn’t shake. I love it when that happens!!

If you like horror that’s unsettling but adds just enough humor to feel real, this one’s worth a read. It’s a little uneven, but it lingers in the best way.

This was an amazing but weird book that I very much enjoyed. The book starts out slower but quickly picks up the pace. This book feels like a fever dream in the best way possible

This horror novel isn't just another piece of brain candy. There are layers upon layers in Listen to Your Sister, ripe for unpacking with a book club.

Shockingly, this is not the weirdest novel I’ve read this year. But in this case weird is cool. It was fast paced, original, tapped into some very real issues, family trauma, and all the fun supernatural stuff. The story just flowed and I couldn’t put it down.
I loved the characters, other than wanting to throttle Jamie half the time and wanting to shake him. My heart went out to Calla and I honestly just wanted Dre to man up.

Great read. I’d recommend.

I was intrigued by the cover alone, the story kept me locked in. Family drama that turns into a horror-like story coming true made for a devouring read. I love getting caught up in the drama of characters, especially family. Stories where dreams, or "premonitions," start fulfilling themselves (Supernatural fans, this one's for you!) will have me immediately glued to my comfy reading spot.

Calla Williams is a 25-year old guardian keeping her teenage brothers; Jamie and Dre under control. But after an incident, the siblings escape to a secluded cabin seeking a peaceful retreat. But well….

I have an older sister so I know how it is out there right 🤣 so in this book, these siblings will make you laugh or maybe they will scare you. For me I didn’t feel this like a horror but about family and survival.

Okay, it's true that this book is super weird. However, that's what I liked about it. This speculative novel is a great blend of horror and a vibe that feels almost folklore-like. It should be required reading for any elder daughters out there, or for people who feel like they're doomed to take care of their siblings forever. There's some fantastic imagery and some pretty gruesome scenes, but overall, it's a story about how we get stuck in certain roles in our family and can't break out of them. I for sure get why this won't be for a lot of readers, but I loved the creativity in Viel's writing. There were some parts that felt repetitive, but I think this was more of a matter of needing a bit stronger editing. I'd be interested in seeing what types of stories she tackles going forward.

Listen to Your Sister is thematically what I love about horror. The best horror stories are not just about cheap scares but about examining things about ourselves, our world, and our fears. Listen to Your Sister does this in spades. This is a deeping moving story about 3 siblings, their relationship with each other, and all the trauma they have dealt with over the years. That includes drug abuse, abusive parents, parentification of older siblings, and racism.

Overall I really liked this novel for taking all these ideas and turning them into a unique and original horror story. There were times that the story felt like it dragged a bit but I thought the payoff was worth it.

The thing that I like most about this book is the way each character feels distinct. They had understandable motivations, thoughts and feelings I could sympathize with, and a voice that made each chapter distinct in whose POV I was reading - honestly, those are the key components to writing a good multi-POV story, and this author nailed it without a doubt. I really felt this when I realized that while from an outside perspective I 100% felt I was on Calla's side and that she was in the right most of the time, during the chapters from Dre and Jamie I could understand the thoughts driving them to act the way they did toward her. Even so, I could feel Calla's justifiable rage during that one particular cabin scene and had a really hard time reading how the boys treated her during that argument without tossing the book out of frustration with them (that's a good thing lol).

Beyond that, this book felt like such a trip. I was confused about what was going on for the first half, which normally puts me off of a book, but the gruesome imagery and the way I could just feel that the author was leaving breadcrumbs I hadn't pieced together yet kept me on the hook and eager to find out what would happen next. The mysterious women showing up to save the boys at different points didn't immediately click for me on where they'd come from, but their determined methods of protecting them had my jaw on the floor. The gore in this book is certainly intense, and even outside the hardcore fighting scenes there were so many moments that churned my stomach with the realism of the description - the mobile of nail clippings and umbilical cord; the dark hair clumps floating in the water; the glass shard from the street going into a foot - all of these made me vaguely nauseous as I was reading. Again, not usually something I can handle in a book, but something about the way the author utilized this imagery felt purposeful and contributed to more than just the creepy vibe.

Genuinely I think one of my favorite parts of this book is the way the author used the narrative to also slip in bits about the criminal justice system and systemic racism. The fear the boys have of being implicated in the murders and what it would mean for their lives long-term, as well as Calla's fear for them, was an extra layer of conflict on top of the supernatural forces already threatening their lives, and one that I think was important to include. Overall, all of the elements of this book came together perfectly and I really loved the story as a whole. I'm definitely looking forward to reading more by this author.

DNF

I could not get into the story or the writing, which was very promising at first and quickly became tiresome.

OK, they really REALLY should've listened to their sister.

Dark, surreal and trauma-laden, 'Listen to Your Sister' focuses on three siblings, their bond and a really intense Nightmare.

The pacing is wildly inconsistent - - the first 50% of the book had me on the edge of a DNF, BUT I'm glad I stuck with it. Once this takes a truly dark turn, it doesn't stop - - circling the drain and dumping you down into the wet, nasty abyss. Familial trauma literally incarnate as body horror.

As far as characters go: Jamie and Dre really grated on me - - as the oldest daughter from a broken family in Florida some of this may have landed too close to home for me to not want to slap them! Calla is just trying her best, man. (Loved Calla, the boys don't deserve her).

I'll be checking out Neena Viel's future works for sure.

This was a do not finish for me, simply not the sort of thing that I enjoy reading about. I only made it to about 7%, when the author was describing Jamie's drug trip. It was disgusting and not worth persuing..

I usually really like weird books, but this was a bit too weird for me. I get the message, you have to put yourself needs first sometimes so you can adequately take care of others. But the book just wasn’t what I expected.

I am DNFing this one at 50%. I have given it a bunch of time but it is very slow and I am just not interested in this at all.

📣LISTEN TO YOUR SISTER📣 by @neenaviel is a dark hallucination fueled by generational trauma that will have you both intrigued and bewildered, which is the point of course. Thank you to the author, @netgalley and the publishers, @stmartinspress and @macmillan.audio for the e and audio ARCs.

💀💀💀

Calla Williams knows the pressure and tight-rope walking that it takes to be guardian to her two younger brothers, Dre and Jaimie. Dre is busy doing his own thing after promising to help raise their 16 year old brother Jaimie, while Jaimie is young, bright and full of good-natured mischief as all teenagers are. But when Jaimie's actions at a protest put into motion a spiral of consequences, Calla finds that The Nightmare that is recurring about her brothers - that she is helpless to keep them from dying or being killed - is unfolding in front of her eyes.

😱😱😱

This story was dizzying, terrifying and at times, even confusing, expertly imbuing the character's emotional states into the reader's purview. These siblings come face to face with the worst night of their lives, a collective nightmare whose dread has silently but menacingly been creeping up behind them. As Calla reaches her limit of stress and responsibility, her fractured selves take on new life flexing her intersectionality of feelings and desires for herself and her siblings.

I was completely rapt by this story while also feeling pulled in multiple directions trying to pick up the pieces. The disorientation was visceral and unbalancing which is exactly how it feels to constantly have to watch your every move. Both heartbreaking and inspiring, this book at its core is about sticking together through thick and thin and forgiving each other for past mistakes.

I started reading the e-ARC but switched to audio part way through which I would highly recommend as it is narrated by three separate voices, 1 for each sibling and they did a stellar job! The sibling banter in this one is so good too!

I ended up DNF this book. I was not a fan of the style of writing (3rd person) and was not enjoying the characters or the development of the story. I may give this book another go at a later time since the description was so intriguing and I am still curious if its worth pushing though.

Calla may only be 25, but she feels decades older after gaining guardianship of her younger brother Jamie. Her other brother, middle-child Dre, said he would help, but he's rarely there for her. After misunderstandings leave Jamie in trouble with the law and Dre unable to return to his home, Calla does what she always does: she saves them. The three siblings find themselves staying in a remote cabin straight out of a horror movie as the two brothers try to figure out the mysterious circumstances that led them to run, and Calla deals with the recurring nightmare about Jamie and Dre dying.

The comparisons to Jordan Peele movies are warranted, and I could see his brand of filmmaking bringing this story to the big screen. Viel deftly manages a balance of fever-dream imagery, real-life horrors, and biting humor throughout this debut. Although I don't have siblings of my own, I bought the relationship between Calla, Jamie, and Dre, and thought it gave the novel enough heart that I was willing to stick through some of the uneven pacing of the first half. Some of the writing was confusing, some of it was beautiful, and a lot of it was funny despite the subject matter. Overall, an inventive and memorable debut and something you should read if you like surreal and/or sociopolitical horror novels. 3.5 Spongebob references out of 5, rounded up.

Social commentary horror in the vein of Jordan Peele, this story is about a family of siblings and their experiences as Black Americans. Calla is the older sister and the legal guardian for Jamie who is 16. Dre is the middle brother who helps occasionally but is unable to intervene when Jamie gets in trouble. The book starts with Calla being called to Jamie's school after he is found with drugs in his backpack. Calla has always taken a motherly role with Jamie but now that their mother was ruled unfit, she has to do the job legally and it causes a great deal of worry and strain. This strain causes her to have nightmares about her brother dying.

After an incident at a protest, Calla and her brothers have to take refuge in a cabin that seems to fit in a horror film. The horror part of the book is difficult to untangle as it veers between nightmares and reality, past and present and in and out of characters. While I felt the intense adjective filled descriptions on a certain level, I was often confused as to what was really going on. The author has an interesting writing style and uses humor that helps sustain this family as they deal with racism, death of a parent, abandonment and trying to hold onto some dreams in life. A dream like quality permeates much of this book but the love of Calla and her brothers comes through loud and clear. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a AREC of this book for review.

First of all, thanks to St. Marten's and Netgalley for the free eARC in return for an honest review.
I wanted to like this one more than I did, but there were redeeming qualities. Firstly the humor, there is some deeply true sibling rivalry that plays well for laughs. In fact I enjoyed how many moments were simultaneously funny and moving (either sad or horrific or traumatic). I also liked some of the nice, juicy gore moments.

What I didn't like so much was the central mechanism of the book. Without bulldozing straight into spoilers, I'll just say I felt the book was built on a premise that I have seen much discussed in the past 5 years or so. There's also a movie or two I could point to, from a variety of eras, based on the same premise.
On top of this, I'm not giving anything away by saying that (as it says in the description) a recurring nightmare is central to the narrative. This means part of the story is in a dreamscape, which means you're dealing with multiple planes of reality which can get messy. Writers who do this well need to run a tight ship, and I don't know if Viel did the best job of this; I feel like she took a couple of sharp turns here and there and left the reader behind the corner, wondering exactly where the story was going.

For feminist reasons, and for dealing with the issue of older siblings who are forced to be stand-in parents, and for race reasons, this is an important book. I just feel like some of the fantastical parts didn't gel with me well.