Listen to Your Sister Review!

Thank you Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for this gifted audio book, in exchange for an honest review. Listen to Your Sister is out now! I don't think I have ever laughed more for an audio book while listening to this one. I adored each and every character and their absolute mess of a life. This one was hilarious, but also touched a lot on family problems and grief. The paranormal aspect was a little out there, but still good. Listen to Your Sister was a 3.5 stars for me! Overall, a hilarious and heartfelt creepy horror. Pick this one up!

I really really did not like the book. It just wasn’t my cup of tea. I listened to this on audio and did not like
The voice of Jamie. His voice reminded me of the voice of a Disney trivia game we use to play when my boys were younger.

I felt like this one had so much potential but it took way too long to get to the spooky part of the spooky story… I also felt like some things were being pushed on the readers and I didn’t like like that at all… this was a no for me but I could see it being a yes for others!

Great read! First read from this author. This book makes me want to read more from this author. Kept my attention and interest until the end.

I really wanted to enjoy this book but it felt like thoughts were thrown together with no connection. This lead to confusion and lots of disbelief, even in the horror aspect.

The narrators did a good job of portraying what was on the page, but there wasn't much they could do to change the disjointedness and disbelief.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press (St. Martin's Griffin), and Macmillan Audio for an advanced reading and listening copies of this book.

This was such a good story with good writing. The characters were unexpected and I loved the development of the relationship between the sister and her brothers. The themes of found family, the role of male siblings versus female siblings and what happens when someone has to take responsibility are enlightening.

2.5/5

Listen to Your Sister blends psychological horror with family drama, exploring trauma, survival, and the blurred line between nightmares and reality.

The story follows Calla, a 25-year-old struggling as the guardian of her younger brother, Jamie. When Jamie’s involvement in a protest spirals out of control, they go on the run and seek refuge in a secluded cabin. As Calla’s recurring nightmares of her brothers’ deaths grow more vivid, she starts to question whether they are just dreams after all.

I was really drawn to the premise, but I struggled with the execution. The novel is ambitious, tackling trauma and survival in creative ways, but it often felt chaotic and difficult to follow. The blending of reality and nightmare made it hard to stay engaged, and I found myself more confused than scared.

That being said, I really liked the sibling dynamics, and the audiobook narration was very well done.

Overall, while Listen to Your Sister wasn’t quite my cup of tea, I appreciate its originality and exploration of trauma through horror, especially as a debut novel. If you enjoy surreal, atmospheric horror with a unique twist, it might be worth checking out.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the audio of this one. The trio that is Eric Lockley, Kristolyn Lloyd, and Zeno Robinson did a really well balanced narration—each taking on a sibling and giving them life.

This novel is a lot of things. It’s a critique on race relations and police involvement, in kind of an à la Jordan Peele-style. It mixes hyper-violence and realism with humor, in a way that I’ve found makes it more palatable for a lot of people that wouldn’t listen/read/watch these types of things otherwise. It’s also a family saga. Dysfunctional as all hell, each jaded in their own way, and each nursing scars they’re too hurt to discuss…even if they claim they have. Calla is broke, forced to take in her younger brother Jamie—who her other brother, Dre, most definitely said he’d help way more than he is with. And most of all she’s tired. Jamie, an aspiring musician, can’t get out of his way enough to realize that he’s way less street than he realizes. And Dre is stuck somewhere in between—too annoyed by Calla to be of much help, and too ‘straight and narrow’ to reach Jamie. And then there’s the nightmares.

On top of tackling all the real world horrors, the author has also blended in nightmarish horrors kind of à la Stranger Things and Love Craft Country (I’m primarily recalling the twin girls scene, but also the idea of shedding skins works well here). Except these strange things are rather more R rated, come from within, and only want to murder the three of them. I struggled with the build up to the climax, wondering if it was about to fumble the twist, and luckily, the author really pulled it off. The explanation of the Calla’s really worked for me, and that unique spin on sacrificing yourself for your siblings, that breaking yourself down into smaller and smaller pieces—or versions of yourself—even when you have nothing more to give, was really powerful.

This book also tackles anger. Being angry with the world, with the hand you’ve been dealt, with not being loved and wanted, with your family, and even with yourself. Jamie can’t get over the way life has treated him. He’s angry, and he’s even angrier that as a black teen, the world isn’t build to accept his anger. It’s raw, it’s real, and I found this novel to be a really strong way to talk about the subject. There’s things to learn here below the surface, and it also works as a functional horror if that’s not your thing.

This is so so well done, especially for the authors debut book. There's equal parts family drama, and eerieness, the characts are vivid and relatable. I did find that it took me a little bit to get invested in the story but it really picks up around the middle. Once I hit that point I just wanted more of it. I definitely agree with other reviewers that it gives the vibe of a Jordan Peele movie, and to me the settings and descriptions were so unsettling I did have to take a couple breaks. But in a horror style book I didn't feel like it was a bad thing. I will definitely be interested in whatever this author comes up with next

Thanks to Macmillan audio and Netgalley for this ALC that I chose to listen to and review

This wasn't my favorite, but I'm glad I gave it a try. I really enjoyed the sibling bond here, but I wasn't a fan of the horror elements - I wanted so much more. I also found it hard to follow.

🎧I’m still trying to reconcile what I just listened to… I went into this book expecting more of a thriller/horror story but for me it wasn’t really that at all. It got super weird. Overall it really wasn’t my thing. There were some heavy subjects addressed and it was slow going. I did love the bond between the siblings though, especially considering all they went through.

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for an ALC.

Listen to Your Sister is partly a horror story, but the focus is on three African American siblings, raised in Hollywood, Florida and now living in Seattle at a time of racial strife. The youngest, Jamie, is 16. His 23 year old sister Callie is his guardian because a determination was made he was no longer safe with his mother. Their father died in a car wreck years ago. Dre, the middle sibling, is two years younger than Callie. She feels overwhelmed as Jamie is constantly in trouble at school and failing to observe her rules and expectations and Dre does not help as he had promised to. She is prone to terrible nightmares that she believes foretell danger to her brothers, especially Jamie. Dre lives in his own apartment with a roommate and he works in restaurants. Dre's roommate, Roberto, is two-timing his girlfriend and things are stressful. Callie also works full-time, but her job is at risk because she constantly has to deal with Jamie's wayward behavior.

At some point, it becomes clear that Jamie is mixed up with a group of friends that have similar social and political sensibilities to his. They plan to support a city-wide protest by giving food and drink to protesters. Except it gets way more complicated and along the way there are incidents that put Jamie at the scene of some serious criminal activity. Dre, too, is faced with danger when people come around thinking he is his roommate Roberto and threaten Dre for cheating on "his" girlfriend. Eventually the situation for the brothers gets so hot that the siblings decide to leave town for a while. The descriptions of the Air BNBs they rent are priceless. Throughout, the horror part of the story involves sibling encounters with supernatural individuals who seem to intervene in dangers they face seemingly to help them but leaving them at risk. To avoid spoilers, that's as far as I can go.

Ultimately, what is amazing about Listen to Your Sister is the way that Viel has captured the sibling dynamic and what it is like to be young and black and living on the edge financially, politically and personally in the United States. All of them experienced trauma at their parents' hands and Callie, as the eldest and maybe because she is female, took on tremendous responsibility to protect her younger brothers. Everyone is damaged and each feels a need to love and protect one another. But there was no roadmap for them. The tension is real and the danger is real, but there are many laugh out loud and sweet scenes in Listen to your Sister that add to the flavor of love and hope throughout some very big messes. I loved the audio version which used three narrators, Eric Lockley, Kristolyn Lloyd, and Zeno Robinson to portray the siblings to amazing effect.

The narration of this was stellar. I loved listening to it. Listen to your sister is pretty heavy when it comes to language and violence. It's also more than what you read at the surface. It's actually very well written, social horror. There are a lot of deeper issues at work here.


If you're cool with weird fiction and enjoy books that are more than the obvious words on the page, then I definitely will recommend it!

I received a copy in exchange for an honest rebiew.

Unfortunately this is a DNF for me. This was a bit too focused on family drama and felt almost YA/new adult at times. I wanted much more horror and creeps from this work. I think those going into it with an interest in the family dynamics and open to younger protagonists would enjoy this work! Sad it did not work for me

For me, this book said women are tired of carrying everyone and everything.
Calla lost her childhood years ago - drug dealing father, toxic mother. She did her best to offer her younger brothers a glimpse of parenting.
With their mother's custody of the youngest, Calla take in Jaime. Dre, the middle child, offers to help but often cannot be found. In her mid-20s, Calla must take on the mantel of mother.
In concert with horror elements, Calla rejects her expected role desperate to just be a person. Just a person.
Chilling, ragging and creepy.

Twenty-five-year-old Calla Williams is the legal guardian of her troubled teenage brother Jamie, who just got himself in his most dangerous predicament yet. When Calla, Jamie, and their brother Dre flee Seattle for a cabin in the woods to escape the law and an argument breaks out between the siblings, something sinister is unleashed. It becomes a matter of who can protect whom...and from what, exactly? Who are these creepy women and girls who keep showing up to protect Jamie and Dre, and are they trying to hurt Calla?

Wow, wow, wow. I know I'm not alone in saying that this is the weirdest book I've read (in my case, listened to) in a long time. The layers of this story, once they begin to line up, are the best kind of mindf*ck. The lines of familial love and responsibility are blurred as the author explores themes including race, gender, generational trauma, and childhood.

I'm giving this one four stars only because it took me a while to feel invested. Once I was, I felt a lot of empathy for Calla and the burdens she bears. There's a lot of gross-out scenes and violence; it is horror, after all.

I HIGHLY recommend the audiobook. The narrators are engaging and expressive and downright creepy in all the right places.

Creepy, gory and heartbreaking. The journey these characters go exploring the trauma that created a hellish nightmare will shock and enthrall you. You’ll laugh, cry, and probably have nightmares about little mama. For readers of speculative horror, this is a must read.

Jumping-off-the-page characters, it is rare when a book's marketing material really nails what it is selling, but one cannot describe Listen to Your Sister any better than the publisher's words: it is indeed 'Jordan Peele’s films + Stranger Things'. This is a horror story motivated by today's African American experience, and features some truly otherworldly, gory scenarios.

One thing I did not expect, but whole-heartedly welcomed, was the amount of comedy throughout. Mainly driven by the love/hate bickering between the three sibling protagonists, whose constant quarrel was credibly written and felt incredibly vivid—a harmless jokey sting, or brutally hurtful only achievable by the closest people. All of this really came to life via its audiobook, with the three narrators fully embodied their respective character. Particularly for someone like myself, who's not often exposed to African American Vernacular English, having the words emotively performed helped my understanding tremendously.

While I love the Jordan Peele-insired aspect of Listen to Your Sister, it is its Stranger Things-ness I had some issues with. This definitely motivated by personal preference, as I've come to realize I'm simply not a fan of quest-like narrative. My experience reading this very much echoed my time reading The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher—where I quickly got bored of the Alice in Wonderland style structure: going to a location to talk to a character/defeat a mini-boss, rinse and repeat until the character meet the ultimate villain. The horror is also more fantastical (monsters) than scary (psychological), so adjust one's expectation accordingly.

Listen to Your Sister was not at all what I expected; I didn't get the type of horror I was anticipating, but I was completely engaged in the complicated sibling drama that felt extremely raw and real. The narrative was a little too absurd and formless for my taste, but I really appreciated its general sentiment and the unique core concept (when selfless love became a burden). Even though as a whole it is not a new favorite, it remains a memorable read.

I really struggled with this one. I love horror, but mayhe it just had too much family drama for me to enjoy it? It started getting confusing too when I wasn’t sure what was real or not. But man did I want to bang the two boys’ heads together and tell them to listen to their sister 😂

The narrators for this actually did a fantastic job. They seemed like they were a real family, and I could feel their annoyance with each other so clearly lol.

Family bonds can be messy. Heartbreaking. Exhausting. But stepping up for one another is also necessary. Calla and her brothers have a tumultuous life. Navigating society in a time that many things are a fight, the group finds themselves on the run and in a whole new nightmare. Full of WTF moments and emotional rollercoasters, I enjoyed the thrill ride!

The audiobook narrated by Eric Lockley, Kristolyn Lloyd, and Zeno Robinson is an excellent way to consume this story. The voices are all talented in their own bringing life to all the characters. They are also easily understood at faster speeds.

Thank you NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, St Martin’s Press, and author Neena Viel for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.