Blue Sisters
by Coco Mellors
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"Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death in this unforgettable story of grief, identity, and the complexities of family, 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 show more 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 Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky 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 each other, 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"-- show lessTags
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Member Reviews
5/5 I would read this one again and again.
It’s a book of three sisters’ grief after their fourth sister dies. It’s about struggles with addiction, whatever form it takes, and about learning how to love again—both yourself and others.
While it may feel slow at times, I think it’s the exact pacing that it needs to be. It’s watching people implode their own lives while in pain before they realize they can or want to stop, and then it’s about the struggle of healing, how healing isn’t linear, but is always possible.
I found it to be beautifully written and heartbreakingly true.
It’s a book of three sisters’ grief after their fourth sister dies. It’s about struggles with addiction, whatever form it takes, and about learning how to love again—both yourself and others.
While it may feel slow at times, I think it’s the exact pacing that it needs to be. It’s watching people implode their own lives while in pain before they realize they can or want to stop, and then it’s about the struggle of healing, how healing isn’t linear, but is always possible.
I found it to be beautifully written and heartbreakingly true.
4/5: A stunning, bruised portrait of sisterhood that refuses to behave nicely.
Blue Sisters starts with a death and then does the harder thing, it stays with what comes after. Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky return to New York a year after losing Nicky, circling the apartment they grew up in and the version of themselves that only exists when they are together. Grief is the premise. Identity is the real plot.
Mellors understands how sisters can be a lifelong witness and a lifelong wound. These women feel specific in the way that matters, not quirky on paper, but shaped by the roles they were assigned and the coping mechanisms they turned into personalities. Avery’s tight control reads as both survival and self punishment. Bonnie’s show more physicality is not a gimmick, it is a language for what she cannot say out loud. Lucky’s beauty and chaos could have slid into cliché, but the book keeps dragging her back to the emotional bill she keeps trying to skip. The fourth sister’s absence is its own character, a gravity that pulls every scene off balance.
The novel is also sharp about addiction without turning it into a morality play. It treats relapse, obsession, self harm, and ambition as variations of the same impulse, the desire to outrun your own interior life. That’s culturally aware writing in the best sense, not a lecture, just an honest recognition of how class, access, and expectation can make self destruction look glamorous right up until it doesn’t. Dark.
A small reservation. This is intensely character driven, and there are stretches where the forward motion thins out, where you can feel the book choosing mood over momentum. The emotional beats still land, but a few scenes linger past their usefulness.
Still, Mellors delivers what most family novels promise and rarely pull off. Compelling, messy, and unputdownable in the way a good argument is unputdownable. When I finished, I wanted to call my siblings. Then I wanted to sit in the silence for a minute longer. show less
Blue Sisters starts with a death and then does the harder thing, it stays with what comes after. Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky return to New York a year after losing Nicky, circling the apartment they grew up in and the version of themselves that only exists when they are together. Grief is the premise. Identity is the real plot.
Mellors understands how sisters can be a lifelong witness and a lifelong wound. These women feel specific in the way that matters, not quirky on paper, but shaped by the roles they were assigned and the coping mechanisms they turned into personalities. Avery’s tight control reads as both survival and self punishment. Bonnie’s show more physicality is not a gimmick, it is a language for what she cannot say out loud. Lucky’s beauty and chaos could have slid into cliché, but the book keeps dragging her back to the emotional bill she keeps trying to skip. The fourth sister’s absence is its own character, a gravity that pulls every scene off balance.
The novel is also sharp about addiction without turning it into a morality play. It treats relapse, obsession, self harm, and ambition as variations of the same impulse, the desire to outrun your own interior life. That’s culturally aware writing in the best sense, not a lecture, just an honest recognition of how class, access, and expectation can make self destruction look glamorous right up until it doesn’t. Dark.
A small reservation. This is intensely character driven, and there are stretches where the forward motion thins out, where you can feel the book choosing mood over momentum. The emotional beats still land, but a few scenes linger past their usefulness.
Still, Mellors delivers what most family novels promise and rarely pull off. Compelling, messy, and unputdownable in the way a good argument is unputdownable. When I finished, I wanted to call my siblings. Then I wanted to sit in the silence for a minute longer. show less
A story about four sisters, told in alternating chapters, each focusing on one sister's life and perspective. Well, except Nicky, of course, because she died. Her "backstory" comes out through memories from Avery, Bonnie and Lucky.
Here's a quote which sums up their personalities:
"The family wasn't normal. Addiction whirred through all of them like electricty through a circuit." Chapter nine
Having an emotionally absent mother and an alcoholic father shaped the girls to be wary of relationships. They depended on each other growing up but craved an ordinary life.
That said, the short speech the father made at Nicky's funeral was touching. I'm not going to type all that out but it's in chapter ten, page 252 if you have the book.
I liked show more Bonnie best of the sisters. Debauchery would sum up Lucky's lifestyle and while I had little patience for her, I did come to see how she spiraled out of control without guidance or a parental net to catch her. Avery is the oldest. She was in a rock-and-a-hard-place position of trying to be a mother to the sisters while they were growing up but wanting to be just a sister later in life. You can't just flip a switch on those feelings and actions so...resentment was inevitable.
Themes of grief, forgiveness, trauma, drugs, alcohol and sex dominate but that also gives perspective on the characters and their feelings of being lost. 3.5 stars show less
Here's a quote which sums up their personalities:
"The family wasn't normal. Addiction whirred through all of them like electricty through a circuit." Chapter nine
Having an emotionally absent mother and an alcoholic father shaped the girls to be wary of relationships. They depended on each other growing up but craved an ordinary life.
That said, the short speech the father made at Nicky's funeral was touching. I'm not going to type all that out but it's in chapter ten, page 252 if you have the book.
I liked show more Bonnie best of the sisters. Debauchery would sum up Lucky's lifestyle and while I had little patience for her, I did come to see how she spiraled out of control without guidance or a parental net to catch her. Avery is the oldest. She was in a rock-and-a-hard-place position of trying to be a mother to the sisters while they were growing up but wanting to be just a sister later in life. You can't just flip a switch on those feelings and actions so...resentment was inevitable.
Themes of grief, forgiveness, trauma, drugs, alcohol and sex dominate but that also gives perspective on the characters and their feelings of being lost. 3.5 stars show less
I adored Cleopatra and Frankenstein and was really looking forward to reading Blue Sisters. Sadly, I was left feeling a bit flat, disappointed and deflated. It is a good book but it’s not a patch on Cleo and Frank.
Avery, Bonnie, Nicky and Lucky Blue, four sisters, all individually exceptional and all individually battling inner demons. After Nicky’s funeral the three sisters go their separate ways before meeting up in NYC one year later to finally go through Nicky’s stuff so the family home can be sold. My favourite bits were the go-lightly eulogy at Nicky’s funeral which was incredibly moving. Troll Doll and Flopsy, the posh, hard-core party girls Lucky hangs out with in London who were spot on, suitably cringeworthy and wryly show more amusing. Venice Beach, Peachy’s nightclub and Bonnie’s last night as a bouncer, all evocatively described creating a vivid sense of character and location. Unfortunately, it was also repetitive, flagging, a tad unrealistic and unengaging in places. And too long. I would have liked more about the parents and less about the boxing. Sisterhood and addiction, loss and grieving, guilt and responsibility, recovery and self-discovery, Blue Sisters kept the pages turning but lacked that special certain something. show less
Avery, Bonnie, Nicky and Lucky Blue, four sisters, all individually exceptional and all individually battling inner demons. After Nicky’s funeral the three sisters go their separate ways before meeting up in NYC one year later to finally go through Nicky’s stuff so the family home can be sold. My favourite bits were the go-lightly eulogy at Nicky’s funeral which was incredibly moving. Troll Doll and Flopsy, the posh, hard-core party girls Lucky hangs out with in London who were spot on, suitably cringeworthy and wryly show more amusing. Venice Beach, Peachy’s nightclub and Bonnie’s last night as a bouncer, all evocatively described creating a vivid sense of character and location. Unfortunately, it was also repetitive, flagging, a tad unrealistic and unengaging in places. And too long. I would have liked more about the parents and less about the boxing. Sisterhood and addiction, loss and grieving, guilt and responsibility, recovery and self-discovery, Blue Sisters kept the pages turning but lacked that special certain something. show less
This might be the first time I’m at a loss for words when trying to write a review. I loved this book. A lot. But I can’t seem to pinpoint exactly what it is that I loved and why. It’s just everything.
This book made me do things I RARELY do. Pull out a specific quote. Cry (kind of, the tears were there, they just didn’t leave my eyes). But the story just really stuck with me. Sibling love (or lack thereof) is something I’ve seen all my life. I’ve seen amazing sibling relationships, but I’ve also seen horrible ones, which make me wonder “how did these people ever live under the same roof?”
The way the Blue sisters know everything about each other to smallest detail was so beautiful to see. And honestly, this book gave me show more hope about both love and grief. There’s 4 sisters, who’ve experienced different things with one another, yet ultimately, they’re all the same to each other: sisters. And they’ve undeniably shaped each other’s lives. The healing journey of Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky was inspiring. They all had their ups and downs but still reached a level of happiness they once thought impossible. Because “you can take a lot of wrong turns and still end up in the right place.” It’s such a simple quote, but it really resonates with me. I’m an overthinker who gets stressed about almost everything, and especially the future. So seeing this just made me pause and think about my life for a second. But it wasn’t this, but the ending that (almost) made me cry. (mini spoiler ahead) When Bonnie names her newborn daughter after Nicky 🥹
The writing was so beautiful. I loved how descriptive, yet dynamic it was. And the characters were so well-developed that this might as well have been a real story about real people.
Overall, I really loved the introspective nature of this book. Following the sisters’ lives and journey forced me to think about my own. I found myself cheering for each sister, while also seeing a part of myself in each of them
Thank you Penguin Random House for the free copy! I was sooo excited to read this book and really appreciate the copy!! show less
This book made me do things I RARELY do. Pull out a specific quote. Cry (kind of, the tears were there, they just didn’t leave my eyes). But the story just really stuck with me. Sibling love (or lack thereof) is something I’ve seen all my life. I’ve seen amazing sibling relationships, but I’ve also seen horrible ones, which make me wonder “how did these people ever live under the same roof?”
The way the Blue sisters know everything about each other to smallest detail was so beautiful to see. And honestly, this book gave me show more hope about both love and grief. There’s 4 sisters, who’ve experienced different things with one another, yet ultimately, they’re all the same to each other: sisters. And they’ve undeniably shaped each other’s lives. The healing journey of Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky was inspiring. They all had their ups and downs but still reached a level of happiness they once thought impossible. Because “you can take a lot of wrong turns and still end up in the right place.” It’s such a simple quote, but it really resonates with me. I’m an overthinker who gets stressed about almost everything, and especially the future. So seeing this just made me pause and think about my life for a second. But it wasn’t this, but the ending that (almost) made me cry. (mini spoiler ahead) When Bonnie names her newborn daughter after Nicky 🥹
The writing was so beautiful. I loved how descriptive, yet dynamic it was. And the characters were so well-developed that this might as well have been a real story about real people.
Overall, I really loved the introspective nature of this book. Following the sisters’ lives and journey forced me to think about my own. I found myself cheering for each sister, while also seeing a part of myself in each of them
Thank you Penguin Random House for the free copy! I was sooo excited to read this book and really appreciate the copy!! show less
Beautifully written, this book is an emotional heart-tugging story of three sisters that are grieving over a sister they lost when she fatally overdosed from taking the wrong drug.
The story is character driven with each sister struggling with their own addictions. They were all trying to take away the pain that they felt when Nicole died. They were raised in a two-bedroom apartment in NYC. They all moved out as soon as they were able and went separate ways. Nicole, a wonderful teacher, had endometriosis. She was constantly wrestling with intense pain.
Avery was the eldest of the Blue sisters. She was the wise one, a caretaker who was brilliant in law school but had a problem stealing small items. Bonnie was born two years later. She was show more strong willed and her life revolved around boxing – the addiction of craving pain. And then Lucky (yes, that’s her given name) was a knock-out gorgeous girl. At 14 years old, she made the big bucks traveling around the world modeling. However, the money was spent recklessly on drugs and alcohol. Each sister needed a good therapist.
Some parts of the story made me laugh out loud. Other parts pushed emotional buttons as I felt the pain each sister had to overcome. It grabbed me from the beginning. The timing of how the book was presented was critical and worked well with the past mixed into the present with each sister’s life. They were all different and yet, they realized how much their relationships meant.
Some lines I had to write down as I’m one of four sisters and pieces made me pause wondering if this was a book meant just for me. I was curious how it would end and felt like it left me with a satisfied conclusion.
My thanks to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book with an expected release date of September 3, 2024. show less
The story is character driven with each sister struggling with their own addictions. They were all trying to take away the pain that they felt when Nicole died. They were raised in a two-bedroom apartment in NYC. They all moved out as soon as they were able and went separate ways. Nicole, a wonderful teacher, had endometriosis. She was constantly wrestling with intense pain.
Avery was the eldest of the Blue sisters. She was the wise one, a caretaker who was brilliant in law school but had a problem stealing small items. Bonnie was born two years later. She was show more strong willed and her life revolved around boxing – the addiction of craving pain. And then Lucky (yes, that’s her given name) was a knock-out gorgeous girl. At 14 years old, she made the big bucks traveling around the world modeling. However, the money was spent recklessly on drugs and alcohol. Each sister needed a good therapist.
Some parts of the story made me laugh out loud. Other parts pushed emotional buttons as I felt the pain each sister had to overcome. It grabbed me from the beginning. The timing of how the book was presented was critical and worked well with the past mixed into the present with each sister’s life. They were all different and yet, they realized how much their relationships meant.
Some lines I had to write down as I’m one of four sisters and pieces made me pause wondering if this was a book meant just for me. I was curious how it would end and felt like it left me with a satisfied conclusion.
My thanks to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book with an expected release date of September 3, 2024. show less
I waited an age to read this, being messed around by the library reservation system and finally getting the Kindle edition cheap, and was it worth the wait? Not in the slightest. This is Sweet Valley High for TikTok, where four beautiful, successful women struggle with first world problems while pretending they're not like other girls (newsflash, honey): 'Blue-eyed, blond-haired, and, most importantly, female, Bonnie was not exactly typical bouncer material.'
The four pretentiously named sisters are all overgrown children, especially the eldest ironically, and I only warmed to them in the final chapters of the book. The mother is by far the most human and honest character, but she's only there to flip a switch in one of her daughters and show more bring them all around. Everyone is an addict - I'm guessing we're blaming the alcoholic father - even though Avery was only on heroin for like a week in her 20s and kicked the habit instantly, but I think the author secretly believes that getting wasted is 'cool', like smoking. The only exception is Bonnie the world champion boxer, who was groomed by her trainer instead. The reason for the sisters' excess is that the one of the number tragically died from an overdose of painkillers, because suffering the excruciating agony of endometriosis to become a mother is a fair trade, apparently ('She wanted to be a mother more than she wanted to be free.)
The eldest sister Avery lives in London with her wife, but the author or her editor apparently decided that, nah. everyone is American at heart, and have the British Asian wife talk about finding 'Plan B' (not available in the UK) in the 'trash can'. But then none of the characters are exactly believable, and we only learn about them through the author's cod psychological 'tell don't show' narrative (she can't even let the reader work out what 'coq no vin' might be without explaining). I really did have flashbacks to my Francine Pascal years, only I'm no longer a teen impressed by beautiful hair and 'bad girls' smoking in secret, sorry.
At least I only paid 99p! show less
The four pretentiously named sisters are all overgrown children, especially the eldest ironically, and I only warmed to them in the final chapters of the book. The mother is by far the most human and honest character, but she's only there to flip a switch in one of her daughters and show more bring them all around. Everyone is an addict - I'm guessing we're blaming the alcoholic father - even though Avery was only on heroin for like a week in her 20s and kicked the habit instantly, but I think the author secretly believes that getting wasted is 'cool', like smoking. The only exception is Bonnie the world champion boxer, who was groomed by her trainer instead. The reason for the sisters' excess is that the one of the number tragically died from an overdose of painkillers, because suffering the excruciating agony of endometriosis to become a mother is a fair trade, apparently ('She wanted to be a mother more than she wanted to be free.)
The eldest sister Avery lives in London with her wife, but the author or her editor apparently decided that, nah. everyone is American at heart, and have the British Asian wife talk about finding 'Plan B' (not available in the UK) in the 'trash can'. But then none of the characters are exactly believable, and we only learn about them through the author's cod psychological 'tell don't show' narrative (she can't even let the reader work out what 'coq no vin' might be without explaining). I really did have flashbacks to my Francine Pascal years, only I'm no longer a teen impressed by beautiful hair and 'bad girls' smoking in secret, sorry.
At least I only paid 99p! show less
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- Canonical title
- Blue Sisters
- Original title
- Blue Sisters
- Original publication date
- 2025-04-08
- Dedication
- For Daisy, for being there from the beginning.
And for Henry, for promising to stay until the end. - First words
- 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 banal as a friend? Yet this status is used again and again to connote ... (show all)the highest intimacy. My other is my best friend. My husband is my best friend. No. True sisterhood, the kind where you grew fingernails in the same womb, were pushed screaming through identical birth canals, is not the same as friendship. You don't choose each other, and there's no furtive period of getting to know the other. You're part of each other, right from the start. Look at the umbilical cord - tough, sinuous, unlovely, yet essential - and compare it to a friendship bracelet of brightly woven thread. That is the difference betwee a sister and a friend. -Prologue
Lucky was late. Irresponsibly, irreversibly, in-danger-of-losing-this job late She had a fitting for a couture show in the Maris at noon, but that was ten minutes ago, and she was still miles away on the metro. She had spent ... (show all)the night before at a fashion week party enjoying the open bar (the only kind Lucky cared for), where she'd met a pair of corporate-employed graffiti artists who were anxious to restore their reputations as creatives on the fringe of society. They'd offered to take her on the back on one of their motorcycles to an abandoned mansion, a former diplomat's home in the 16th Arrondissement, that they set their sights on tagging. Lucky wasn't particularly into the concept of defacing a historical building was spray paint, but she was always happy to delay the night ending. -Chapter One, Lucky - Last words*
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Ora il buio era più fondo. Le facce erano sempre lì. Era bello, quel posto. Sarebbe rimasta.
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 823.92
- Canonical LCC
- PR6113.E473
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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