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Book Summary and Reviews of Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

Blue Sisters

A Read with Jenna Pick: A Novel

by Coco Mellors

  • Readers' Rating (8):
  • Published:
  • Sep 2024, 352 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death in this "deeply nuanced and compelling" (Vogue) novel, from the acclaimed author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein.

The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left the family reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.

But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize that the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from one another but from themselves.

Imbued with Coco Mellors's signature combination of humor and heart, Blue Sisters is a story of what it takes to keep living after loss—and, ultimately, to fall in love with life again.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
  1. When the novel opens, the Blue sisters are all living different lives in disparate cities. How does the loss of Nicky impact each of the sisters differently?
  2. Discuss the line: "A sister is not a friend." What do you think the author means by that? Do you have siblings? If so, would you consider your sibling a friend?
  3. Discuss the role of addiction in the book. How does it shape the sisters' choices and actions? Have you ever struggled with addiction or been close to someone who has?
  4. How does the author depict grief and the process of healing in the story? Which sister's journey resonated with you the most?
  5. What do you think the New York City apartment meant to each sister? What do you think it symbolized for ...
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Reviews

Media Reviews

"A stunning sibling story for fans of Emma Straub and Lily King." —Library Journal

"Mellors delves into sibling drama with this frank and soulful offering ...This story of addiction and grief will resonate with readers." —Publishers Weekly

"In Blue Sisters, grief is rendered with gorgeous particularity. Coco Mellors writes about the special language endemic to family and troubles the idea of home." —Raven Leilani, New York Times bestselling author of Luster

"With great sensitivity to language and psychology, Mellors offers an immersive portrait of three young women as they search one another and their contexts for antidotes to complex afflictions. The result is a stunning exploration of sisterhood and grief, addiction and recovery, pain and pleasure. At once contemporary and timeless, Blue Sisters is captivating." —Tess Gunty, National Book Award–winning author of The Rabbit Hutch

This information about Blue Sisters was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

labmom55

Struggled with the characters
Blue Sisters is the second pick for my buddy-read with my granddaughter. Let me start by saying, I am the wrong demographic for this book. I’ve lost my patience for women looking to self-destruct. But, as an only child, I’m always interested in how siblings are portrayed. I was shocked when I became a stepmother to realize siblings weren’t carbon copies of each other. The book starts with the premise:

“ A sister is not a friend. Who can explain the urge to take a relationship as primal and complex as a sibling and reduce it to something as replaceable, as a friend...You don’t choose each other, and there’s no furtive period of getting to know each other. You’re part of each other, right from the start.”

There were four Blue sisters. But one has overdosed and the other three are still struggling with their loss one year later. It doesn’t help that their father was a nasty alcoholic, so they had issues even before their sister died. They all are one example after another of self sabotage. Avery has become a workaholic after getting herself off drugs. Her wife wants to have a baby but Avery refuses to admit she doesn’t. Lucky is a model who revels in drugs, sex and nonstop partying. Bonnie was a professional boxer who gave up the sport after she lost a key bout and is now floundering. At one point, Lucky thinks “Could you fall out of love with life if you were never in love with it?” And it seems to apply to all three. They were three very miserable human beings. It was Chiti I actually admired and felt sorry for. As she tells Avery “So you hate yourself? So what! You’re not a teenager! You don’t get to act on every self-destructive urge you have.” And that summed up my feelings. These adult women all kept acting like teenagers.
The family relationships felt too predictable although maybe that’s because there’s truth in birth order psychology.

I wished the author explored more in depth the addictions that seemed to have a genetic component. Now, I also read. A LOT. So most of the book felt like it’d been done before. (And better.). For those not reading hundreds of books a year, maybe this will feel fresher.

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Author Information

Coco Mellors

Coco Mellors grew up in London and New York, where she received her MFA in fiction from New York University. Her debut novel, Cleopatra and Frankenstein, was a Sunday Times bestseller, has been translated into over fifteen languages, and is currently being adapted for television. She lives with her husband and son in New York.

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Read-Alikes

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