“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 the highest intimacy. True sisterhood is not the same as friendship. You don't choose each other and there is no furtive period of getting to know each other. You are a part of each other, right from the start. Look at an umbilical cord– tough, sinuous, unlovely, yet essential– and compare it to a friendship bracelet of brightly woven thread. That is the difference between a sister and a friend.”
— Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors
I’ve never anticipated a book more than “Blue Sisters”.
Ever since I feverishly devoured “Cleopatra and Frankenstein”, Coco Mellors’s debut novel, I knew that I had found an author whose work I would pick up no questions asked. For months I waited with bated breath to have this book in my hands, to sink my teeth into the story and its characters, to lose myself within the pages. And I was not disappointed. “Blue Sisters” was everything I wanted and so much more.
I was pulled in by an incredible prologue, one that painted sisterhood so vividly — especially to somebody, like me, who has never experienced the bond between sisters firsthand. Coco Mellors’s writing is beautiful in that way. The entire book is filled with her gorgeous, vivid prose. But it was the characters, these sisters, that makes this book so memorable. They became like real people who I constantly thought and cared about.
And now, a week after finishing this spectacular book, I know for sure that I’ll never stop shouting from the rooftops about “Blue Sisters”.
{This is a spoiler free love letter!]
“Blue Sisters” is a literary fiction novel told from the alternating perspectives of the three living Blue sisters — Avery, Bonnie and Lucky — a year after the death of their other sister, Nicky. Since her sudden and tragic death, the dynamic between the three of them has changed and their personal struggles have deepened, leaving them more estranged than ever. However, the sisters unite again when their parents decide to sell the apartment that not only Nicky lived in, but the same two-bedroom apartment that was their childhood home. As the story progresses, long-simmering tensions between the sisters rise and breaking points are reached, but the loyalty and love they have for one another grows too.
The plot of “Blue Sisters” is relatively simple, the story beautifully quiet and slow, but its simplicity allows for the deep, intimate, and oftentimes uncomfortable, examination of its characters. If you like complicated stories or a plot brimming with action and twists, this might not be for you. But if you love character studies that don’t shy away from the dark parts of the characters and focus on character over plot, “Blue Sisters” is a book that you need to read. As readers we get to intimately understand the inner workings on each sister. We see their flaws and vulnerabilities, the way their hearts have broken and been pieced back together, how each of them are prone to self-sabotage and are in some way touched by addiction. We see the way they are unable to overcome the dynamics of their childhood. We come to sympathise with their insecurities and anxieties. They become real people who feel like they’re going to step off the page.
I really loved Avery’s chapters. They were probably my favourite. As the oldest Blue sister, her story is one of the oldest siblings being forced to step up and become a second mother to her younger siblings. She dressed and fed them, protected and shielded them when their father drank. And we see the trauma of that responsibility: the way she holds herself up to such ridiculously high standards, how she can’t just be a ‘sister’ to her sisters, her feeling like her efforts are always under-appreciated by her siblings and parents, and her own pains with addiction. The unpredictability of her adolescence is then replaced with a more stable adulthood — a thriving career and a loving marriage — that Avery is struggling to hold onto. She’s falling apart. Ultimately, Avery’s story is one of rediscovering herself again in her thirties. It’s about reclaiming herself as a person and an individual undefined by her relationships with her sisters, her parents, her wife. From beginning to end, I felt for Avery. Her story was one I was invested in the most. And her closing chapter was perhaps the most beautifully written ending I’ve read in a long time.
The next sister is Bonnie, the second eldest, and compared to her other sisters she is more stoic and reserved. She has a heart of pure gold. She’s the peace maker. But her quiet nature is wonderfully juxtaposed with her inner strength, bravery and incredible fighting abilities in the boxing ring. Yet since the unexpected death of her sister, Bonnie has stopped boxing and is pushing aside feelings for somebody she doesn’t believe she can have. She’s lost and angry, and her once secure future feels uncertain. To be honest, I struggled with Bonnie’s chapters at first — mostly because they didn’t have the same chaotic energy as Avery and Lucky’s chapters. But upon reflection, I think that’s the beauty of Bonnie as a character. Her chapters perfectly reflect her nature, and provide a moment for us as readers to take a breath. A moment to pause. Yet we’re still yearning for Bonnie to go after what she wants. By the end of the book she became the character I couldn’t stop thinking about the most and her I sobbed like a baby when I read the epilogue because of her. Trust me when I say this: don’t be surprised if Bonnie Blue becomes your favourite character.
And the final sister is Lucky, the youngest of the four Blue sisters. I adored Lucky. She is the baby of the family and is often treated as such. She’s been a tall, stunning, world travelling model since she was fifteen and her life has always been one of chaos, extravagance and overindulgence. But Lucky still has many insecurities and she’s been stumbling carelessly through life for years — endless partying, drinking, overdosing, random hook-ups and other reckless behaviours. And now that she's twenty-six, with Nicky’s death like a open wound — the sister she was closest to — her life is beginning to change and she needs to decide how she wants to spend the rest of her life. I think out of all the characters, Lucky is the one whose growth was the most interesting to read about. She just broke my heart. I wanted to reach into the pages of this book and give her a hug. And perhaps her ending in the epilogue was the hardest pill for us as readers to swallow — it certainly made me feel a little teary — I think it was so authentic and realistic for her character.
Even though Nicky — the third eldest Blue sister — dies tragically before the story begins, she is just as important of a character as Avery, Bonnie and Lucky. I’m not sure if this is considered to be a trope or not, but I love when a character who has died has such a strong presence in the story. Nicky haunts the narrative, appearing in memories and flashbacks so vividly that it only intensifies the grief and pain portrayed by her other sisters. She exists while no longer really existing, remaining this beating heart at the centre of the story even in death.
I love that Coco Mellors wrote Nicky as this real human being who wasn’t necessarily ‘special’, but was still so profoundly important to the Blue family. It made her feel more real, like what happened could have happened to anybody. Nicky was their shining light. She was the most feminine and girly of her sisters. She was the kind of person to have plenty of friends, and as a teacher all of her students loved her. She pushed and supported her sisters in a loving way. She was their mother’s favourite. She yearned for a normal life and a true romantic love and a baby. But she also wasn’t perfect, and as the story progresses we discover why. Yet without her, there is no longer two pairs of two — there’s an unbalanced threesome that is still trying to understand how to move through the world without Nicky.
And that was just so heartbreaking.
I will just briefly mention that despite the mother and father being mostly absent from the story, we do get two very emotional and impactful scenes that as a reader I loved. When you get to them, make sure you have tissues!
If you’re a lover of literary fiction or are looking to start reading literary fiction, I suggest reading “Blue Sisters” right this second. This is one of the deepest, most intimate character studies I have ever read. Like I said, the plot and story of “Blue Sisters” is simple, the pace slow but steady. It’s a quiet story. The action comes from the characters and their growth.
And it’s filled to the brim with devastating emotion, exploring the sentimentality of sisterhood, the pain that erupts with grief and the all-consuming struggles of addiction. It doesn’t stray away from the ugliness of these topics, in fact it respectfully embraces them. There are also mentions of endometriosis, kleptomania and the difficulties of rediscovering who you are in times of turmoil.
Overall, “Blue Sisters” is a beautiful and tear-jerking story that will forever have a special place in my heart.
Links:
Author Coco Mellors: ‘I needed from the book something that I needed in my life — a sense of hope’
Coco Mellors on Why a Sister is Not a Friend, Grief and Her Sophomore Novel
Coco Mellors: ‘As a sober person, I don’t think I’ll ever not be able to write about addiction’
Favourite Quotes:
“But what they don’t know is this: As long as you are alive, it is never too late to be found.”
“Avery had previously thought love was built on large, visible gestures, but a marriage turned out to be the accrual of ordinary, almost inconsequential, acts of daily devotion—washing the mugs left in the sink before bed, taking the time to run up or downstairs to kiss each other quickly before one left the house, cutting up an extra piece of fruit to share—acts easy to miss, but if ever gone, deeply missed.”
“I think you're the opposite of insufferable, I suffer you gladly.”
“Their family had always been good at hellos and goodbyes, moments ending even as they began. It was easy to love someone in the beginnings and endings; it was all the time in between that was so hard.”
“He was the only man in the house, but he also was the house. They lived inside his moods.”
“Being one of four sisters always felt like being part of something magic.”
Thank you so much for reading my love letter to “Blue Sisters”. As many of you know, I’ve been not-so-patiently waiting to read this book. So I’m incredibly happy that I finally read it and can share my thoughts with you all.
From what I understand there are some mixed opinions on this book. Some people either really love it, while others don’t. And that’s okay! I’m just so grateful that my most anticipated read for 2024 ended up being one of my favourites. If you decide to read it, I hope that you love it just as much too!
Until next time,
- Madeline