i was so very excited to grab this one. it was my first mellors and i still think i will grab other books by her but this one didnt live up to the hype i had in my head from the synopsis. it just ended up being "okay" the story wasnt bad but it also wasnt great. i think the third person narrative didnt allow for a deep connection. this is definitely a ME problem, i am very much not a third person girlie. it has to be done juuuuust right. the build up was just too slow by the time we got to the meat of the story with the sisters together it had lost me.

overall: if you like a third person narrative with a slow build grab it i dont think you will be disappointed

Four sisters with their own struggles, but when one passes away all three are left mourning their fourth sister. The sisters are navigating grief and addiction so there are heavy subjects involved, which I recommend looking up all trigger warnings before reading.

One thing we didn't get to see is the relationship as sisters develop all together. I know siblings go through their ups and downs but there was so much friction whenever they were together. I felt like all three of the sisters barely got to truly spend time together, and if they did they always had something to argue about.

All I know is reading this made me really miss my brother because we had something way bigger than "sisterhood". We were permanently attached at the hip, best friends that never ever even fought like these sisters did. Maybe it was just frustrating to read about the fighting between these sisters, because the relationship I had with my brother had all the ups and never had any downs like the sisters did in this book.

I do love Coco Mellors' writing and she automatically became an auto-buy author for me after reading Cleo+Frank, which is still my favorite of hers. Overall, I still enjoyed this one and I think an adaptation would be even better!

I loved everything about this book -- it was not an easy read due to the subject matter but I enjoyed every bit of it.

It has been a year since the fourth of the Blue sisters died, and the remaining three sisters are trying to figure out what their lives look like without their fourth.

I loved each of the sisters so much, and was rooting for each of them as we see them make crucial life changing decisions.

This made me so curious to know what Coco Mellors's relationship to addiction and alcoholism is -- she writes it so well from every angle.

This is my first book by her and I am eager to read her debut novel and excited to read what she writes next!

I would recommend this to anyone who likes family dramas, really strong characters and doesn't shy away from hard topics.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!

I really thought that I was going to like this book, but it turns out that wasn’t the case. I just got tired of reading about addiction and more addiction, and it seemed to really drag at times. I didn’t like any of the sisters, and what happened to them really didn’t matter to me.

I gave 3 stars instead of 2 because I liked the title, I liked the cover, and the last fourth of the book was a little more interesting.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I thought that this was an very well written and beautiful story of these sisters. Being someone who only has a brother, the dynamic of sisters is always interesting to me and I thought that this is one that was heart wrenching yet stunning.

I adored this book. It was so beautifully written & I could relate to the characters even though I had none of the same life experiences of them. Though I could predict the ending, it was still heartwarming & left me giddy after the final page.

5 stars.
No notes.

This was perfect, in all ways. Absolutely gorgeous writing, the characters are so incredibly real that they truly just walk off the page. The dialogue is as real as a conversation that you are actually engaged with, and its just incredible.

An absolutely gorgeous and devastating novel about the life of four sisters after one of them passes away. The grief processes and strong family dynamics was tender and I loved it.

Blue Sisters follows 3 of the 4 Blue sisters following the death of their fourth sister, Nicky, from an overdose. The book tackles how each of them individually and collectibility as a family deals with their grief and personal addictions.

As the eldest child in my family, I absolutely loved how the author portrays sibling, specifically sister dynamics. Each sister's voice as their own and their personalities shined through. The writing style kept me engaged and makes my interested in reading Mellors other work.

tw: addition, drug & alcohol use/abuse, grief, chronic pain, endometriosis, fertility issues

4.5 ⭐️
Blue Sisters is a story of sisters, secrets, and addiction. It follows Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky as they encounter the changing effects of grief in the year following the death of their beloved other sister, Nikki.

The varying perspectives, movement through stages of grief, and themes of addiction, patterns of destruction, and sisterly bond brought a lot of layers in just over 300 pages.

I was glad to see there was moments of hope, self realization, and awareness amongst so much pain and destruction.

This book was well written and Coco Mellors’ world building, imagery, call backs, and characters were top tier.

This book started off very strong, but as it went on I found myself not really caring about what happened. It follows 3 sisters grieving the death of their sister who passed 1 year ago. I’m not sure what I didn’t love about it, just didn’t really care about any of the characters, found it really depressing, bleh

blue sisters was a decent read. I appreciated the sisters' relationships and approach to grief. I did not like the simplistic job choices for them though.

I am always a sucker for a story about a group of sisters. I enjoyed Mellors writing and I definitely understand the hype surrounding this book.

The heart of Mellors' "Blue Sisters" beats in the complicated rhythms of sisterhood, grief, and self-discovery. In this compelling debut, three distinctly drawn sisters - Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky Blue - orbit around the gravitational pull of their childhood home and the ghost of their fourth sister, Nicky, whose death has left an unfillable void.
Mellors excels at character differentiation, crafting three vivid personalities whose paths have diverged dramatically: a reformed addict turned lawyer, a former boxer nursing her wounds as a bouncer, and a model trying to outrun her demons. The geographic spread - London, Los Angeles, and Paris - serves as more than mere setting, reflecting the emotional distance the sisters have placed between themselves and their shared past.
The novel's strength lies in its exploration of how grief can both fracture and forge family bonds. The impending sale of their childhood apartment serves as a clever device to force confrontation - with each other and with themselves. Mellors handles addiction and recovery with particular nuance, avoiding both glamorization and judgment.
While the plot sometimes relies too heavily on convenient timing to bring the sisters together, the emotional authenticity of their interactions more than compensates. The revelation that their biggest secrets are those they keep from themselves rather than each other offers a fresh take on the familiar theme of family secrets.
"Blue Sisters" is ultimately a poignant exploration of how we carry our losses and how sometimes coming home means finally facing yourself.

Blue sisters follows sisters Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky a year after the death of their sister, Nicky. They’re all struggling, both because of Nicky’s death and for their own individual reasons, and they’re scattered across the globe. But although they’ve been distant from each other in the year since Nicky died they are all forced to come together when it’s time to sell the apartment they were raised in and sort through Nicky’s things.

I gave it a second star because the writing wasn’t bad and I did want to know where every sister would end up by the end of the book. So I have to give Coco Mellors credit for making me always care about the ending no matter how much I was hating the book at the moment.

This is the kind of book that’s guaranteed to be a hit. The writing isn’t bad. The author’s previous book was a hit. The publisher(s) threw a lot of money behind promoting it. But the reason I want to focus on is that it includes heavy topics that connect with everyone emotionally. Off the top of my head it touches on: the complications of sisterhood, addiction, childhood trauma, marriage/marital issues, facing up to your future not going the way you planned, endometriosis, parents who suck, and the internal turmoil many women experience when deciding whether or not they wants children. And I’m sure there are some things I’m forgetting. But if you look at this list I’m positive you’ll find at least two topics that matter to you deeply and you’d love to read about because they’re a huge part of your life. Of course that will make a lot of people like this book. It feels good to look down at the pages of a book you’re reading and see your deepest struggles looking back at you. But I have a problem with books that talk about tons of difficult topics: I’ve never read one that was able to truly dig deep into the vast majority of the topics it tries to address. In fact they often mishandle or spread incorrect information about the topics they attempt to address because the author simply wasn’t able to juggle appropriately handling so many complicated issues. And once again I found that problem in the pages of Blue Sisters. I especially didn’t like how badly the queer characters (mostly Avery) and endometriosis were handled.

While I do have experience with a whole lot of the big topics addressed in Blue Sisters I can’t say that I have knowledge about addiction from close personal experiences. So I want to make it clear that I might be wrong about this. But from what I can tell that was the topic that was addressed most in depth and most accurately. I think it might’ve been the only topic that got the attention it deserved. This is a VERY unpopular opinion based on the reviews I’ve read (and I’ve read many) but I don’t even think the relationship with the sisters was addressed with enough depth even though that’s what should be at the heart of the book sitting right next to addiction.

So in short my biggest complaint is that although it touches on many many important subjects that matter to so many of us, I don’t think it gave those topics the attention they deserved. And because of that, and don’t kill me for saying this please, but because of that the book felt shallow (except, like I said, in regard to addiction). And it deeply frustrates me when a book contains heavy topics but feels shallow, especially because without fail those books will be widely loved.

I also didn’t care about the sisters. They never felt real. They just felt like caricatures of what sisters are supposed to be based on their birth order: “Here’s Avery, the intense overachieving oldest child.” “Here’s Lucky, the wild youngest child.” “Here’s Bonnie… the other one.” Yes, I did care where they’d end up, but I didn’t care about their journeys to get there or about their lives or feelings. They also didn’t feel like sisters to me. I have two sisters. And of course I’ve seen lots of different sisterly dynamics irl. This didn’t strike me as a real dynamic between sisters. It got to a point where I had to google if the author has any sisters (she has one). Sure, we’re TOLD that although they’re super different and they frustrate the hell out of each other that they love each other. I’ve seen lots of people say that they were deeply emotionally struck by the first paragraph (or maybe sentence? I don’t remember and I don’t have the book anymore so I can’t check) of the book and what it says about sisters. Ok. Sure. We’re told all of that. But I don’t think we were shown it. These did not feel like three people who grew up living and loving and fighting in the same traumatizing house. Also let me nitpick for a second here: there is a real life famous model named Lucky Blue. And Coco Mellors decided to make one of the main characters of this book a famous model named Lucky Blue. Um… why… did she do that? This isn’t a MASSIVE deal but wouldn’t most authors choose… not to do that?

This was one of my most anticipated books of the year. I thought it would destroy me but that it would be perfect for me. So I requested advance copies at every opportunity I could find. When I finally got it on NetGalley I was DELIGHTED… but here we are.

Blue Sisters was an emotional and heartfelt character study of 3 sisters dealing with loss. Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky are dealing with the fallout after their fourth sister, Nicky, unexpectedly passes away. Each sister must deal with her own personal issues while also managing her relationships with her sisters and showing one another support. The story deals with addiction, recovery, family relationships, romantic relationships, sexual relationships, and loss.

As an only child, I was unsure how much I would relate to the theme of sisters and their connections and relationships, but I felt incredibly connected to all of the characters. Their issues and emotions are very real and relatable. For readers with sisters, I think you'll absolutely fall in love with this story.

The writing is fantastic. Coco Mellors does an amazing job of bringing each of the Blue sisters to life. All three of the main characters are very different, but they all feel very real.

TW: addiction

Coco Mellors and I didn't leave on good terms after Cleopatra and Frankenstein, but I am happy to say that Blue Sisters is a wonderful book. While Mellors is dedicated to the unlikeable MC trope, I found many more redeeming qualities in these women. Each character felt fully fleshed out and entirely unique, which is not an easy feat for an author. Grief and addiction can be difficult topics to explore, but I think the story is well balanced between honoring the struggle without glorifying it. I truly enjoyed the read from start to finish, and have selected it to be my book club pick for the month of October (I host a female-focused book club that explores topics, in this case sisterhood).

Thank you for the opportunity to read an early copy of this book, despite my late review :)

This was a fantastic read. The book dealt with some darker themes (addiction, grief), which I usually do not enjoy, but this author did a great job of finding a fresh point of view on these topics.

The characters were different- not your typical cookie-cutter heroines. They each had unique careers, perspectives, and flaws.

What I enjoyed most was how familiar the sisters felt with each other. It felt like an accurate and touching depiction of sisterhood.

I really enjoyed this story of sisterhood and grief. I knew I would enjoy it from the cover and hype around it and was NOT disappointed. The writing is beautiful and this book measures up to literary fiction classics and I believe will stand the test of time.

this was a challenging, reflective read. its about 4 sisters who couldn’t be more different from each other. it showed layers of dynamics of them, how they love and hate and everything-in-between. how their lives changed since the death of one of the sisters. each have their own problems, it’s all messy, but that’s the book’s charm.

i was unsure i’d like it at the beginning. i found it hard to grasp the plot because there’s flashbacks here and there, but i kept reading. around 40% mark i started to get intrigued. the chapters are very long, but i was glad that this book uses 3rd person POV because 1st person POV would make it extremely confusing. the ending gave me some sort of calmness, very fitting and deserved after the shitshows they’ve been through. i liked it.