My main issue with this work is the pacing. It starts off painfully slow, and stays slow until over a third of the way through. I think I was close to halfway through before I got to what is mentioned in the end of the blurb. And after all that buildup, stuff started moving so quickly that the experience as a whole felt unbalanced.

This work is pretty surreal and like a fever dream. Those elements are slowly introduced in the first half then quickly escalate in the last half of the book. Stuff gets crazy and nightmarish in a really fascinating and creative way. I loved how the imagery was used to explore the themes. It was a highly creative way to explore built up resentment, anger with those you're closest to (including yourself), how self-sacrifice can affect your mental health/relationships, and unresolved trauma, just to name a few. Heavy themes. But these aspects also ended up feeling disjointed and sometimes overwhelming to the point where it was hard to keep track of what exactly was going on and to who. It was an odd reading experience.

If you're looking for a surreal read with heavy but relevant themes relating to family and racial trauma, then you may like this one. My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

4.5 stars rounded to a 5

Listen to Your Sister by Neena Viel is a knock out debut novel! A horror novel that is a bit of a slow build in the beginning and then it hits a point where things go crazy in the best worst ways ! From the start I was completely invested in Calla, Dre, and Jamie. This is a horror story of resilient sibling bonds, unexpected humor that make the main characters feel real and relatable, a clearly haunted airbnb, living nightmares, bad decisions, sacrifices, murder dolls, and a hard fought for satisfying ending!

This was not a great read for me. The twist at the end was unexpected and interesting but the slog to get there was long and slow. The characters are very one dimensional and the plot tries to be intricate but just manages to be muddled and confusing.

I do not know how to review this book without spoilers. I'll try. But, I gave it 5 stars, so that should mean something, right? Calla is the oldest and sister to Dre and minor Jamie. She is petrified of something happening to her brothers to the point of recurring Nightmares. Calla takes her sisterly duties seriously! And never underestimate a sister's love! The result of this makes for one amazingly kick butt story! Viel does a terrific job of setting the scene, developing the characters, and building the plot. I was a little distracted when the narrative veered off into Calla's Nightmares, but it is important! I loved the multiple points of view. This helped the story progress and remain grounded. As this is a debut, I will now need to watch and wait to see what Viel offers us next! I'll be first in line! (Oh, and I am not a fan of horror movies, but Viel wrote this so well that I could envision the movie and what a great movie it would be!)

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a copy of the book. This review is my own opinion.

I don’t know quite how to explain this book but it’s a mix of all things. Family, love, creepy and secrets.

I enjoyed the book but at times felt a bit confused as there was so much description. It did bring up so many topics in families and dysfunction that can happen but in the end we are all family!

Listen to Your Sister is a gripping nightmare-based horror story that follows three siblings: Calla, Dre, and Jamie. Their sibling dynamic and how they process family and societal traumas are at the forefront of the horror, and I really liked how each one of the POV's felt distinct. The horrors persist, and they are surreal and mind-bending. However, the disorienting aspects of the horror narrative didn't take away from my ability to understand or keep up with the plot, and I felt trapped in these nightmares alongside the characters. Overall, I definitely recommend this book if you're in the mood for a horror thriller about three siblings trying to survive a nightmarish world while unpacking their own traumas and inner conflicts.

Some content notes include: Car accident, death of a parent, verbal abuse from a parent, panic attacks, police brutality, racism, violence, blood, vomit.

A huge thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for a copy of this eARC in exchange for my honest thoughts!

Listen to Your Sister is a debut speculative horror novel that is full of heart and soul. The story of Calla and her brothers Dre and Jamie takes us on a deep and thought provoking journey. Swipe to read the full description.

Broken down into three parts the story of these siblings brings horror to a whole new and all to real level. Touching on generational trauma, white privilege, racial bias, police brutality this story really takes the reader into real life fears people live through. The scary twist to these real life horrors adds even more depth to what all these circumstances can do to the psyche and what consequences can come from having no way out. It took me a moment to fully grasp the depths of this book and once I did I really fell in love with it. Calla as the oldest child was relatable to all us eldest siblings often have to carry on our shoulders. I really enjoyed reading about each character through their own POVs. Each character was so well written you could feel the heart and emotion of them coming from within the pages. Great job to the author for putting this out into the world! I can’t wait to see what will be the next novel from Viel!

25-year-old Calla is the oldest sister to 22-year-old Dre and 16-year-old Jamie. The siblings are a disjointed family unit, and they all three have lasting emotional damage courtesy of their deeply-flawed parents. Circumstances lead to Calla gaining guardianship over Jamie, and she struggles with the demands of parenting her brother with very little support. (Jamie is a capricious teen with an attitude, questionable judgment and impulse control, and dangerous friends; and Dre isn't helping as much as he'd promised.) The struggles of solo guardianship compete with her job responsibilities and how she supports herself and her brother, compounding her worries. Loving but frustrated, Calla suffers from anxiety-ridden night terrors in which she must continually save her brothers from mortal danger. Then Jamie gets suspended from school for drug possession, and things start getting inexplicably weird for the siblings. After a social protest goes extremely sideways for Jamie, they're forced to flee the Seattle suburbs and hide in a remote cabin in Oregon. Then things *really* get weird.

This book had an interesting premise and execution so I'm going to do my best to avoid revealing spoilers. The author has created a disorienting, tense, violent, and heart-wrenching story. She is clearly imaginative and has a talent for descriptive writing (honestly I felt like this could be a movie, it was that easy to picture events as they unfolded). But please pay attention to the content warnings before going into the story as there was a lot that was disturbing and graphic. Both Dre and Jamie were hard to warm up to at first, and I found Jamie to be especially unlikable for most of the book. (Which unfortunately made it harder to invest in caring what happened to them, even when events escalated to dangerous proportions.) I felt for Calla, the most sympathetic of the siblings. A once-parentified child, Calla does her best with Jamie after being thrust into an impossible situation. All three siblings were negatively impacted by their parents' choices, and are weighed down by childhood trauma and disappointment and the heavy responsibility of love.

The story is told from alternating POVs from all 3 siblings, which lends depth and some structure to what was sometimes a chaotic narrative. I felt like this book didn't always know what it wanted to be: sometimes the writing felt like literary fiction and other times more like a psychological thriller, with a hefty dose of graphic horror mixed in to the whole thing. This was not a quick or easy book and I struggled to finish, although some of that was because the dark themes and content were overwhelming at times. (Also, do not trust the "laugh out loud" part of the book description. There were some moments of humor, largely dialogue, but they were meager and this was not in any way a funny story.) I found the book to be a bit dense at times with uneven pacing, although the pace picked up quite a bit around the 50% mark. The author writes like she deeply understands emotional trauma, and she has created an evocative mix of family dysfunction, horror, and social commentary. It was well-written and the author seems like she knows quite a bit about the extraordinary sacrifices families make for one another. So, if you love imaginative and gritty books that focus on family dysfunction bound up in love, mixed with social commentary and psychological horror, then this is the novel for you. Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC of this book.

Thanks to NetGalley & St Martin's press for the chance to read this book

Honestly this just isn't my type of read, I should have known better at the Key and peele thing, But i wanted to give it a try.. It's too weird for me I had to DNF it, I'm really not into reading the N word and reading all the racist references to the scary white people every few minutes. The first part of the book was just begging for me to give up, it's really slow paced and pretty boring. It def picks up around the cabin portion but by then I was just not interested enough to keep trying, then it just got weird again

Other then that it's really wonderfully written and I'll give it 3 stars for effort.. Just not my style

I appreciate the advanced copy, and the opportunity for an honest review, but unfortunately this book was NOT for me. I DNF’d at 20% because I couldn’t connect with any of the characters, the plot was muddled, and literally nothing had happened. I can tell this author has writing chops, but I’m not the audience for this book.

Okayyyyyy I thoroughly enjoyed this book! It was absolutely nothing like I expected to be, but I ended up loving it! The Mc I felt so sorry for. She is in her mid or late 20s (I believe 25?) And She takes on caring for her younger sibling who is quite a bit of trouble. She has reoccurring dreams and I don't want to give anything away but it's definitely definitely worth picking up! This story was much different than any other book I've read, it was fresh, and I loved the writing style.

There is some beautiful language in this book (."..internally, the boy was curling smoke, opaque and unpredictable."). The story is raw and heart wrenching, however it wasn't for me. There were too many passages where it was hard to distinguish nightmares, drug induced visions, and maybe psychotic induced visions from reality. I would have liked to have gotten to the cabin horror portion, but unfortunately I had to DNF part of the way through.

I’m not 100% sure what I just read, but I do know I enjoyed it.

I wasn’t sure I was going to finish it at the beginning - it seemed like it was YA for a little bit. But these “kids” grew up very fast! All of the life they have experienced is what makes the story as great as it is.

This is a weird one… like very, very weird. It’s written like a fever dream, or well, a fever nightmare.

It’s creepy, and honestly one of the most original books I think I’ve read.

It’s about family. It’s about trauma. It’s about nightmares. But ultimately, it’s about survival, and strength, and love.

DNF at 45%

I don't think I am the intended audience for this book. While I enjoy reading the horror genre, I found this one to be too much of a slow burn and too political. The story felt disjointed at times, which made it difficult for me to follow what was happening. I also found the politics to be over-the-top and too much - this read more like a political agenda about racism from white people attempting to be masked as a horror and was highly off-putting. I read to escape reality and the politics of the real world. I enjoy a realistic story but don't need racial politics and white people hate mentioned on the majority of pages. I enjoyed the idea of the story and the dynamic between the siblings, but overall, the story unfortunately fell flat for me.

I'm not even sure how to review this. Horror is not one of my usual genres, but every now and then there's a cover or a blurb that catches my eye and I can't help but dabble a bit. <i>Listen to Your Sister</i> first caught my eye with the cover (THAT COVER!) and then the blurb was also intriguing, so in I dove.

This was a bit of a slow start for me at first, but then about a quarter of the way into the book I just could NOT put it down. The novel is written in the third person and told in alternating chapters between siblings Cala, Jamie, and Dre's POVs. It was really interesting to see not only the situation and plot, but also the shape of their relationship from each sibling's point of view. I sort of grasped the vibe of what was happening with The Nightmare as the book went along, but was still surprised by the reveal - and then again by the final twists and turns that just kept me guessing!!

One reason I don't usually "do" horror is because I'm pretty squeamish. While this does have some "ewwwww" moments and elements of body horror, it's not really graphic in a way that made it so I wasn't able to read it (which I'm so thankful for, because I'd have hated to miss this ending!) I can't believe this is Neena Viel's debut novel, and I can't wait to see what she brings next!

95/100 or 4.75 stars

This was so simoly fantastic. I loved this novel and everything Viel has done with the story. The writing was engaging, the topics and hard shit brought up was done so well and made such an impact while reading. I am going to want to read any new release from Viel in the future. The ending was so good, and the last 25% of this book was unexpected, heartbreaking, and healing. 10/10 would recommend this book. Check content warnings though, as always.

Listen to Your Sister is an amazing debut novel with a title that harkens back to what younger siblings have heard their whole life. Calla has Nightmares that have been plaguing her a very long time: seeing her younger brothers die because she can’t protect them. And now the Nightmares are coming to life and coming for her and her brothers after they’ve had to go on the run to a remote cabin. It’s there that the Nightmares converge on the family.
This book definitely is one that’ll leave you considering just how bad those demons that are in our head can be. But it also fortifies just how strong sibling relationships can be in this story of horror and survival.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC of "Listen to Your Sister." I was initially intrigued by the premise and excited to dive into this story. However, after giving it a fair chance and reaching the 35% mark, I've unfortunately decided to DNF.

While I appreciated the underlying idea, the execution just didn't work for me. The narrative felt choppy and abrupt, making it difficult to follow the plot. I struggled to understand the timeline and the relationship between the apparent story within a story. This disjointed feeling, combined with a writing style that didn't resonate with me, ultimately hindered my ability to connect with the book. I often felt confused and disoriented rather than drawn into the narrative.

Furthermore, I struggled to connect with the characters, particularly Jaime and Dre. I found them both to be unsympathetic and frustrating. Their treatment of their sister, and the way they seemed to take her for granted, really bothered me. I had a hard time understanding why she continually went out of her way to protect them when they clearly disregarded her feelings and treated her so poorly. This lack of connection to the characters made it even more difficult to invest in the story.
While there were hints of the promised horror elements, they felt disconnected from the main narrative, contributing to the overall sense of disjointedness. Ultimately, "Listen to Your Sister" wasn't the right fit for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Listen To Your Sister is story about 3 siblings, Calla, Jamie and, Dre. Each chapter is narrated by a different sibling, sharing separate experiences that led them to this point, in their relationships with each other and in life. This book has family drama, supernatural horror elements and realistic sibling banter. A solid horror debut.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I liked the idea of this story, but the execution just didn’t really work for me.

Jaime and Dre were both rather unlikable to me too. Jaime I could give some leeway to as he was a teen, but Dre was just selfish and I found myself wondering why Calla should care to protect them.

I liked the horror aspects we got but it just felt a bit disjointed overall for me.