This was a perfect debut novel! This author really wrote this and I thought this was her third of fourth book and I was surprised it wasn’t!! Definitely a must read if you are looking for a thriller

Debut author Neena Viel seems to have already mastered the art of subtle scares that will get under your skin and have you keeping the lights on a little longer at night. Fantastic character development allowing me to have a connection with the story and really care about what happens next. Great pace that kept the story moving. An absolutely wonderful debut! Thanks for the opportunity to read in advance!

Listen to Your Sister explodes onto the horror scene as Neena Viel's unforgettable debut novel. At its heart is Calla Williams, a 25-year-old Black woman juggling the intense responsibility of raising her younger brother Jamie while battling forces both supernatural and all too real.

Viel masterfully blends laugh-out-loud moments with spine-chilling terror, crafting a story that feels like a rollercoaster through a haunted house. The novel tackles heavy themes - family bonds, racial dynamics, and personal sacrifice - but never loses its grip on pure entertainment. Think Stephen King meets Tananarive Due, with a fresh voice that's entirely its own.

This fever dream of a story grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go, proving that sometimes the scariest things aren't just the bumps in the night, but the choices we make for the ones we love.

If you're hungry for a horror novel that's equal parts heart and horror, Listen to Your Sister deserves a spot on your nightstand. Just maybe leave the lights on while you're reading it.

An incredibly unique concept, executed well, Listen To Your Sister is a story about family and trauma and the ways the past can (sometimes quite literally) haunt you.
This was a riveting story that I find hard to describe in just a few words.
I look forward to reading more from this author in the future.

For a more in depth review, please check out my spoiler free youtube review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03dLNhbWSBc

I have mixed thoughts on this book. First let’s go over the pros. I loved the concept of the book. The feminist storyline, and what is expected of women, is a strong foundation for a story. It is also a really unique concept compared to any horror novel I have read. I can truly see this as a movie.

The negative to me is the second half of the book got a bit choppy and repetitive. Maybe another pass by an editor would have helped? I really feel mixed overall because I did like how unique the story is, but I feel like it had potential to be stronger. Either way, a fun read!

I struggled with this one. It was a slow moving book, I found it clunky and at times confusing. I kept on until just past the midpoint but then I gave up as I wasn't interested in the plot or characters. I wasn't even sure what was going on. This was a DNF for me.

What a strange, strange book!

Incredibly chaotic and very strange. It was like a train wreck you cannot look away from. Not because it was bad, but it just blew my mind.

The underlying themes of family dynamics, love and rage really pulled me in and I surprisingly enjoyed the twisted way the author told this story.

Calla, Jamie and Dre are siblings that have been through hellish experiences together. Calla at only 25 is guardian for Jamie who is hard to control, constantly pushing boundaries. Some dark subjects are covered, but done well. I think it is best to just dive in without much previous knowledge of the story. It will blow you away!
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was an interesting read and honestly nothing at all like what I had expected it to be.

I enjoyed the author's writing style and thought that it was a great addition to have the story told from each of the siblings perspectives. I think for me the pacing was just off, the beginning was hard to get through but the last portion was done really well.

I'd definitely try another book from this author in the future.

This book was all over the place, and it missed the mark for me. The pace was uneven, which made it hard to stay engaged. So many parts were confusing. The second half was just overly repetitive to the first half. And I found the writing style choppy. This might work better as a movie than it did as a book where some of these issues might not be as obvious.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Calla is having a hard time raising her younger brother. He keeps getting into trouble. A nice read.

I was lucky enough to win a copy of LISTEN TO YOUR SISTER by Neena Viel in a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you for the early look, and have a safe holiday season!

Oh, this goes to some unexpected places!

It’s a very dark tale of love and rage and all things family – for good or bad!

I loved our very different siblings and found the truth of everything both heartbreaking and chilling.

Expect very current themes wrapped in a mystery both supernatural and extremely dark.

Loved this one!

• ARC via Publisher

A Black feminist horror story that takes a sharp look at the burdens women are expected to assume, carry, and succeed at without support. Viel shows how women can become fragmented, reduced into archetypes, and unheard, creating trauma that leads only to further trauma. While I feel like the book might benefit from another close editorial pass, it is visceral and fast-moving, and a solid read.

Thank you to the author Neena Viel, publishers St. Martin's Griffin, and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of LISTEN TO YOUR SISTER. All views are mine.

Jamie knew how to best help women: give them weapons instead of pacifiers. p49

This book combines a lot of different horror and weird fiction elements, from inner demons projected into reality to unplotted time travel, to create a piece of existential weird fiction that's as smart as it is riveting. It's an emotional story full of relatable characters, family to each other, and so representative of people who struggle in this unfair world.

“They tell me things[," Calla said] “Of course they do. It would be gauche to occupy your body and not contribute,” Dre said. p263

Three (or more) things I loved:

1. Calla was envious of how his bulk communicated clout where hers communicated an affinity for chicken tenders. p5 And she comes out swinging! What a powerful statement about body size, body image, and gendered power.

2. The younger brother, Jamie, is an excellent example of an unlikable lead.

3. [Dre] didn’t know what Jamie was up to, but he understood the yearning. The clawing at the base of the throat, the one that stretched and stretched because of this cursed skin, this blessed skin, and the gifts and burdens that came with it. p41 This is wonderful character development for both these brothers, and wonderful writing besides.

4. She handles busy scenes well, beautiful scenes with groups of characters.

5. Suicide is a subject that very few writers handle delicately. Many books stigmatize it, depression, mental illness, or all three. They don't plot the action, or use it as a plot device. They dehumanize the person. They demonize the person. Veil, on the other hand, treats the subject with conscientiousness of its nuance and complexity. She plots it carefully and develops the characters to respond to it with empathy. So grateful when I find this in books.

6. This author understands mental illness, and being so in a sanist and ableist world. It’s hard going about the day behind a mask, gold and shining, delicate filigree curling around the eyes, the mouth . What lurks behind is teeth, affixed to the skin, a membrane of blood behind brassy eyes. And the screams build and build, trapped behind the iron seal, and it has to be swallowed. It just has to, otherwise you would be screaming all the time. And you walk around like that. Go to work, flip some burgers. p100

7. Viel's details are so real and relatable; they add so much value to the book. She didn’t have a bra , and she ran with one arm trying to hold her breasts down. She didn’t want to knock herself unconscious. p125l

8. This book is absolutely chaos, but it's the good kind of chaos. The plot and character development are strong and solid. The whole piece moves in a predetermined direction. Veil controls the story and thus the chaos, instead of the chaos controlling the author and yanking the story around by its hair.

9. An amazing example of existential and weird horror.

10. I've never read a book that better explains the plight of the oldest sister. Parents spawned new Callas every day, women adjacent to mothers, foisted with the responsibility of raising new generations. p253

Three (or less) things I didn't love:

This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.

1. The author's compassion for mental illness deteriorates over the course of the story, into something more stereotypically horror trope-ish. Whoever made these drawings was a fucking lunatic. ... Jamie fervently prayed he wasn’t the fucking lunatic. p237

Rating: 🏚🏚🏚🏚.5 /5 cabins in the woods
Recommend? Yes!
Finished: Nov 3 '24
Format: Digital arc, NetGalley
Read this book if you like:
👥️ psychological horror
👤 existential horror
🕳 weird fiction
👻 ghost stories
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 family stories, family drama
👫🏾 sibling relationships, siblings as parents
💇‍♀️ young women's coming of age
😵 curses

Strange in the best ways,
compulsively readable,
witty, heartfelt, dark.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I write haiku reviews but am happy to give more feedback.

Unfortunately this book didn’t work for me. I tried for almost 3 months to read this and ended up being my first ever DNF for NetGalley, which is a huge bummer as I dearly love reading debut authors. I made it through 35% of the book (All of part one). My current typical turn around on a book is 24-72 hours, so I really did try!

I am definitely in my horror era but this books missed the mark for me for several reasons: 1) the writing style is overly complex and makes it a much slower read 2) the pacing is wildly inconsistent 3) I genuinely had no idea what was happening and what was real, it was too confusing. 4) when part 2 started, I wasn’t sure what place and time it started from, so I threw in the towel.

I do think this could make a good show or movie, given the right details and time, I kept hearing it compared to a Jordan Peele movie and I see that but the story just didn’t resonate with me.

Thank you to NetGalley and SMP for this advanced copy and while I am disappointed by not finishing I am grateful for the opportunity. I will not be posting my review on external platforms to give the author a fair shot from readers who completed the book.

This book gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, women's intuition.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book! Like most horror novels, it begins in a terribly mundane way with Calla, our protagonist, worrying over her youngest brother Jamie, who is a "troubled teen." searching for identity in all the wrong places, feeling alone and unheard. At the same time, Calla is tired and wishes her brother Dre would help her take care of her brother.

We get to go into all three of the siblings heads and see the turn as their lives go from normal to eerie to horrific, with Nightmares coming to life, visions only the siblings can see and being on the run from things they can't explain. What I enjoy most is that the author, Neeha Viel, makes it clear that the women in this world have untapped power and as Calla's Nightmares for the last few years have allowed us to see, that power isn't always used for good, but it is used for agency.

The descriptions in this novel are so vivid that you can feel everything that is happening, you can see Calla's blood-soaked foot and hear the clang of metal on metal when she crashes her car. You can feel the relief that she feels too, later in the story. It's so palpable and visceral that your heart skips a beat and you tune out the world around you. A wonderful read and I will be looking forward to more from this author!

Not for me. I requested this to read in October, as I always like to stock up on "spooky stories" to get me in the Halloween mood. This wasn't quite what I expected, and not my favorite.

Listen to Your Sister by Neena Viel is a dark and disturbing debut that takes family saga to the dark side. Calla is twenty five and at her wits end when it comes to caring for her sixteen year old brother Jamie. Becoming his legal guardian had never been part of her plans but with the help of their brother Dre, she thought she would be able to make it work. Instead she finds herself in and out of the Principal's office, and desperately worrying about Jamie and his ongoing involvement in increasingly dangerous protests, and Dre seems to have checked out of any responsibility. So far it seems like a pretty standard contemporary story about one family's struggle but then the author adds a layer that definitely shifts the book into horror territory. Calla has recurrent nightmares about her brothers, where she is forced to watch them die over and over again, and now it seems that that Nightmare is taking on a life of its own. When the siblings are forced to flee to a remote cabin in the woods, things definitely take a turn for the terrifying and I was completely hooked. Don't be fooled by the description, this is a book that is not afraid to get a little weird, and if you are willing to go with that it will certainly take you on a journey. At first I struggled a little with the characters, as none were particularly likeable and in fact I thought both brothers were abhorrent, but as the book unfolded and the characters developed I was able to see a few redeeming features. If you are patient and stick with it, the reward is definitely worth it.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.