Buckle in for a wild ride with Listen to your Sister. The best way I can describe this book is chaotic.
It’s about family bonds & trauma (parents death, sibling guardianship, kids forced to deal with adult issues, abandonment, sacrificing your dreams for siblings). Cross that with nightmares, horror and a side of supernatural. It’s definitely a fresh story and I’ve certainly never read anything like this before.

Subject warning if you’re sensitive for the following: drug use, violence & racial slurs.

The book is written from the POVs of the siblings Calla, Dre & Jamie and is the debut novel from Neena Viel.

The cast of narrators - Eric Lockley, Kristolyn Lloyd & Zeno Robinson did an excellent job with the parts.

Thank you to NetGalley & Macmillan Audio for letting me read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This had an incredibly interesting premise, but very obviously felt like a debut. After about the first 1/3 of the story, I began feeling lost because the plot became convoluted. It became unclear to me when observations were nightmares vs real encounters.

However, I did really appreciate the commentary about family, particularly needing to care for your siblings. I thought the depiction of sibling dynamics was very accurate and honest.

I'd be interested in reading more from Neena Viel in the future, because I think the bulk of my critiques are due to this being her first novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ARC!

🎧 Book Review 🎧 I just turned forty and am only starting the stage of parenting teens and some days I am not sure how I made it through the events that unfolded. Calla is twenty-five and the legal guardian of her brother , who keeps getting into trouble that is spiraling. Listen to Your Sister is a gripping, horror-filled thriller that delves deep into generational trauma told through the lens of three siblings, Calla, Dre, and Jamie. Neena Viel blends the reality of what it is like to be a black youth in America with a nightmarish inferno that unravels like a terror you could not even dream of. Narrated with absolute perfection, this spellbinding book unravels in the most deliciously dark and captivating manner that even time in the real world seems to be lost while engrossed in the harrowingly horrific tale of Listen to Your Sister.

3.75⭐️

This was a chaotic fever dream! Honestly I didn’t realize what I was getting into and this book will not be for everyone.

I am thankful to have gotten the ALC from MacMillian Audio for free from through NetGalley to read which gave me the opportunity to voluntarily leave a review.

Now, personally this book wasn’t exactly for me. It was a bit too indulgent in the plethora of tropes and political messages used and came off a bit disjointed.

However part of that is because I personally can’t connect to it being a white woman. For that reason I am so glad that I read it because I appreciated the representation as well as a different life experience. Because of the base of the story being a literal nightmare of the FMC Callie the jumping from one thing to another is just a facet of dreams sometimes. It’s just that the execution in the editing process could have been smoother to make it more readable:listenable.

The multicast narrators did a good job overall. There were some voices that were just cringy and came off a bit stereotypical but hey, it’s our “turn” so it’s all good.
The book comes out on February 4th 2025 so if you like horror, give it a shot!
My rating system since GoodReads doesn’t have partial stars and I rarely round up.

⭐️ Hated it
⭐️⭐️ Had a lot of trouble, prose issues, really not my cup of tea (potentially DNF’d or thought about it)
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Meh, it was an ok read but nothing special
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really enjoyed it! Would recommend to others
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Outstanding! Will circle back and read again

DNF at 25%, so I got a good sense of it. I think this book will work fine for many readers, but it wasn’t working for me.

This is the story of Calla, an older sister left parenting her youngest brother without much help from the middle brother. She gets a frightening recurring nightmare, especially if her brothers aren’t home. Jamie, the youngest, is struggling and lashing out while also experiencing some gory hallucinations (?). At about 25% the setup is sort of coming to a head such that the siblings will go into hiding (based on my read of the synopsis).

As you might guess based on that summary, I was frustrated by the slow pace. When I read horror/thriller, I don’t enjoy lengthy setup. Character work is usually not that great in horror/thrillers, so I kind of prefer to skip the setup of such generic people. There wasn’t enough horror or thrills here for me!

On the positive side, I thought the few horror elements that were there in the early part of the book were cool. Effectively distressing and creepy!

The humor was another problem for me - pretty cringe - but that’s highly subjective. I was willing to go along with it for the sake of a compelling horror story, but that didn’t take shape.

Also a minor note - I was reading this via audiobook and the narrator for Jamie regularly got weirdly quiet. I don’t know what was going on with his audio, but it was frustrating!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

When listening to the audiobook version, how much weight do you give the text vs, the production? If you’re lucky, they will roughly match, so you don’t have to feel like one is dragging down the overall rating.

With Listen to Your Sister, this would have been close to a 4 star for me, but I kept getting taken out of the story by the unexpected cadence and emphasis that didn’t always seem to match the message. I did like the choice to have different narrators for the siblings’ PoVs, but they were not equal in quality.

For the text, there were some really effective descriptions of horror, body horror in particular, and the core relationship- between the three orphaned siblings - felt very real, equal parts loving, loyal, and protective and antagonistic, dismissive, and cruel.

To use the yes, no, maybe vernacular, this is a yes* for me - with the * pointing to - I recommend the text version over than the audio if that’s an option for you.

It was slow to start and hard to follow. The writing was choppy and had a YA feel. So yeah, it was a struggle to finish. We need more black horror stories unfortunately this wasn’t it.

**Thanks to Macmillan Audio & NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review**

Listen To Your Sister
Neena Viel

Publication date: February 3, 2025

5 / 5

Now THIS is an impressive debut. I went in blind (as you should) and was blown away by the journey Neena Viel took me on.
Great plot, great pacing, this horror novel has a visceral atmosphere that's set up perfectly with precise and blunt writing.

Familial trauma takes unexpected turns in this dark, touching and timely novel that's both hopeful and heartbreaking, scary, and dark in perfect doses ... this is one horrifically grim, yet incredibly beautiful fairytale.
I found myself lost and frantically turning the pages, as though following breadcrumbs with breakneck speed, to it's (objectively) perfect ending.

I loved and highly recommend this book. If we have similar taste in horror (anything rated 4 or 5) just "listen to your sister" and read this book a.s.a.p.

5 / 5

I couldn't finish Listen to Your Sister by Neena Viel. While the premise intrigued me, I found the narrative disjointed and difficult to follow, making it hard to stay engaged. The pacing and structure felt uneven, and I struggled to connect with the story or its characters. Unfortunately, it just wasn't the right fit for me.

I want to start off by saying this storyline was so confusing! At first I thought that maybe I’m not understanding because of the pace of the audiobook. After slowing it down, I quickly realized I still wasn’t following what was happening. Once I realized that the sister, Calla, pulled her brothers into her nightmare, it made a little bit more sense.

Some parts of this audiobook were creepy. The different Calla’s had a creepy aspect to it. However, I was expecting so much more based off of the synopsis and the cover. It fell flat for me.

I will say, the narrators were great! They all had range and changed their voices when someone else was speaking which helped with some confusion.

All in all, this story wasn’t for me.

No notes. Utter perfection. As the eldest daughter with a little brother 10 years my junior, I understood Calla so thoroughly in the way she grew up caring for him and always wanting to protect him.

This book is heavy and filled with a trauma and included the Black experience that I’ll never begin to understand or experience myself. But I have no notes, this book was outstanding.

It reminded why I loved the movie, Split. And other books similar to it.

Also a great listen and I think the audio was the perfect way for me to read this book!

I wasn't really sure what to expect with this one. In fact, about halfway through listening to it, I had to stop and re-read the book's summary on Goodreads. It's not that I wasn't enjoying the ride Viel was taking me on, it was that I couldn't even begin to guess where we were going, or even what kind of ride we were on to begin with.

That's what's so cool about speculative horror, though. It's weird and it's fresh and when done well it's unlike anything else you've ever experienced. Listen to Your Sister is all those things and more. Calla Williams, the titular sister, is relatable, likeable, and complex. As the 25-year-old guardian of her reckless younger brother Jamie, she’s constantly juggling her own exhaustion and frustration with the responsibility of keeping her family together. Her recurring, vivid nightmares of losing her brothers—nightmares she can’t control or explain—set the stage for a gripping narrative that is as emotionally charged as it is terrifying.

When Jamie gets caught up in a protest gone wrong, Calla is forced to flee with both her brothers to a remote AirBnb, culminating in an intense night that feels like a fever dream. As they try to escape the terrifying new reality that might be connected to Calla’s disturbing dreams, the family dynamics come into sharp focus—sibling rivalry, love, and sacrifice all collide in the face of impending danger.

This is horror with heart. Viel has created a deeply complex family unit with these three. Though each one is flawed in their own—often frustrating—way, it's easy to see how much they each care about the others. You can't help but root for them as they fight for their lives and try to figure out wtf is happening to them. She's also created a deeply disturbing, nightmarish situation that these characters are forced to navigate through that is unlike anything I've ever read before. There are some Jordan Peele echoes in the best possible way, but this novel is wholly unique. It's scary, heartfelt, shocking, and often laugh-out-loud funny.

The narration was phenomenal as well. I will be on the lookout for Neena Viel's name in the future. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.

“Listen to Your Sister” is a bold debut for Neena Viel, whose writing is blurbed as “Jordan Peele meets Stephen King.” If there is a sub-genre for African American horror novels written by women (think Oyinkan Braithwaite’s “My Sister is a Serial Killer,” Nicola Yoon’s “One of Our Kind,” Rachel Howzell Hall’s “These Toxic Things,” and Zakiya Dalila Harris’ “The Other Black Girl”), then author Viel fits right in. The notable difference in these Black horror stories is the big part that social horror plays, along with the supernatural.

Calla is the 25 year old main character, trying to do right with her 16 year old trouble-making rebellious brother Jamie. Jamie is in chronic pain since his father died and can’t think far enough ahead to visualize consequences of the stupid things he’s doing as an adrenaline junkie. Calla supposedly has shared-custody of Jamie with her 23 year old brother Dre, but Dre shucked most of that responsibility, to live a comfortable separate life. Calla has also long been suffering “The Nightmare,” a repeating night terror of seeing one of her brothers horribly murdered.

“The Nightmare” is becoming a lucid daytime dream now and with good reason: both of her brothers are in deep trouble — not only from the police but from avenging female wraiths (grandma with a stabbing yellow umbrella for Jamie and a hot pink strapless dress girl with a skewering spike heel for Dre). Jamie was caught up in a Black Lives protest when he drove the van that contained weapons; Dre was mistaken for his cheating roommate Roberto. Both were about to be unalived by bad people when their unbelievable avengers stepped in to slaughter their adversaries. Both brothers end up running to their overwhelmed common sense sister, whose secret superstition that “The Nightmare” only happened “when sh*t was about to go down with her brothers.” This time, Calla hears an eerie inner voice: “Don’t let this happen. Whoever did this to them—can f*****g die. Keep them safe”. So when they flee Seattle, where do they go? To a little cabin in the woods, decorated with taxidermy and crucifixes. Even they know they’re walking into a cliché horror story.

The supernatural action is interrupted with sly humor, but the family drama and sibling rivalry is the top concern tearing the trio apart . In the second half of the book things get, well, weird. Calla’s Nightmare is becoming real and there are times when the plot gets muddied. But, overall, a great debut for Neena Viel. 4 stars.

The audiobook version has a full cast: Kristolyn Lloyd, Eric Lockley, and Zeno Robinson as Calla and her brothers. The three narrators give life and personality to the characters as they tumble through their shared nightmare. When each of the POVs has its own distinct voice, listening to such a thriller gives it an extra depth that reading can’t convey. Each performance was top notch — not overly theatrical or somber, but a full range of emotional highs and lows. 5 stars for the audio version!


Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO No green eyes.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO Just the scary woods (although not populated with murderous beavers as Dre insists).

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for an advanced reader and listener copies!

I have listened to 34% of this book and I have decided to not finish it. Unfortunately, I find the overall plot hard to follow, the character's to be hard to follow with similar names and lacking of a back story so far, and I am having a hard time getting indulged in the story or what is actually going on. I understand the reader targeted for this story, and I don't believe I am that person.

Thank you for your time and consideration to allow me to listen to this audiobook advanced copy.

3.5 stars rounded up

While this book didn't entirely work for me, I think it's a promising debut in the horror genre and there's a lot to like here.

One thing to note is that this book is being compared to Jordan Peele and The Other Black Girl, therefore you should expect that it is a book dealing with race! I see some reviews that didn't like that element, but I think it's pretty clearly baked into the marketing so I'm not sure why they chose to review it if that was going to bother them. Personally I think horror is a great genre for exploring issues of race relations and that element of the book was done well with complex, nuanced characters.

I also appreciated the theme of what it means to be an older sister who is parentified too young. I could really relate to that, even if my experience was milder. Even this thing of having nightmares about trying to save a younger sibling from harm? Yep, been there. It does a great job of building this emotionally painful situation between three siblings who are struggling, including a woman in her mid-twenties serving as guardian to her 16 year old brother who keeps getting into trouble. The early part of the book sucked me in, but kept upping the creep factor.

Where it kind of lost be a bit was in the execution of the final part of the book leading up to the ending. I felt it went a little off the rails and there wasn't enough scaffolding built for where we end up. I get what it was trying to do, and conceptually it was interesting. But for me the reading experience really lost steam just when it should have been ramping up. That said, I would try something else from this author in the future because there were elements to this that really worked. The audio narration is great with a different narrator for each sibling perspective. I received an audio review copy via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

What even is going on in this family??? The audiobook was frantic and I couldn't get my pulse to slow down enough with all the hallucinations and running around the characters did.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Listen to Your Sister is unfortunately my first DNF of the year. I am 85% done and I just can’t do it anymore, which is a bummer because it started off really strong. I really liked the concept and focus on the torn bonds between the siblings, but that’s pretty much all I liked. The writing felt incredibly convoluted and the plot actually got so hard to follow; and I love a confusing plot. I struggled with how choppy the book felt. I even listened below my normal audiobook speed but I could not follow what was going on at all.

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

3 stars

This is a creative horror novel with elements of family drama, trauma, and even humor. It's a promising debut overall.

Calla is the responsible sibling, and this is how she ends up as the official caretaker for her youngest brother. The pair have an additional brother, whose commitment to serious adulting hasn't quite appeared yet. As a result of her young age, general life stresses, and the burdens her siblings have put on her, Calla's concerns begin to weigh on her in a number of ways. This all comes to a head when the trio are forced to leave their home for a weird adventure that should remain a mystery until you read it for yourself.

I did have some difficulty getting hooked in the first third of the book, and this was unexpected because there are few motifs I love more than sibling relationships. Once we all went on the move, I was much more interested in and at times fascinated by the directions the events and characters took. Though this is not YA, there are stylistic and thematic choices that make it feel that way at times, and I think some of that inconsistency also challenged my reading a bit.

While this listen contained ups and downs for me, it was a positive experience in general, and I am looking forward to more from this author.

The narrators are so good that a few times I found myself listening to their voices but not listening to the story. The story was amazing too. At first I didn't get it but in the second half I felt this story in my soul. Calla is trying to keep her brothers alive, and has been her entire life. She is burnt out. She is losing it.
And now they are stuck in the paranormal. Amazing.
I love it.

3.5 Stars rounded up!

This debut novel has a lot to offer, even if the pacing didn’t quite hit the mark for me. The story of Calla Williams and her brothers is packed with real-life horror—issues like racism and family sacrifice—that feels both impactful and heartfelt. Calla’s exhaustion and sense of duty are deeply relatable, and Jamie’s recklessness adds plenty of tension to their dynamic.

While much of the book leans on real-world struggles, the supernatural element introduced later in the story was a welcome addition! The pacing felt slower than I prefer, and the ending seemed a tad rushed.

That said, the book is undeniably a solid debut. I’m excited to see what this author does next, as their skill is clear! If you enjoy horror that blends societal issues with supernatural thrills, this is worth a read.

Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio for an advanced copy of this book! I enjoyed being able to move between the e-book and audiobook, which I don’t often get the opportunity to do with advanced copies!