Publishers Weekly
07/15/2024
Mellors (Cleopatra and Frankenstein) delves into sibling drama with this frank and soulful offering. The four Blue sisters form a tight bond while sharing a bedroom in the family’s New York City apartment and dealing with their domineering, alcoholic father and aloof mother. They remain close after leaving home, until Nicky, the second youngest, dies at 27. On the first anniversary of Nicky’s death, the surviving sisters learn their parents are selling their childhood home, and reunite at the apartment. Avery, the oldest at 33 and a successful lawyer in London, has taken to hiding her smoking and shoplifting habits from her wife. Thirty-one-year-old Bonnie, a retired boxer, works as a bouncer in Venice Beach, Calif., while former model Lucky, 26, can barely through the day without drinking. As the siblings dredge up old wounds and regrets about Nicky, a kindhearted teacher who lived with all-consuming pain from endometriosis, they’re brought together by their enduring love for one another, even as they judge each other for how their lives have spiraled. Mellors draws each of the characters distinctly, including Nicky, who comes to life via the others’ memories. This story of addiction and grief will resonate with readers. Agents: Mollie Glick and Emily Westcott, CAA. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
In lush, cozy prose, Mellors guides us into the lives of Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky Blue, reuniting to clean out their childhood apartment in New York City on the first anniversary of their sister Nicky’s death. . . . She is . . . able to capture the ferality, stickiness, and beauty of both sisterhood and grief.”—The New York Times
“This intricate portrait of a family of sisters is deeply nuanced and compelling, a family drama with intimate psychological portraits within it.”—Vogue
“Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors paints a beautiful portrait of grief and the world-shaping bond sisters share.”—Real Simple
“If you loved Little Women or Ann Napolitano’s Hello Beautiful, consider putting Coco Mellors’s Blue Sisters at the top of your reading list. . . . Expect bingeable, alternating chapters and a well-rounded perspective on grief, addiction, and complicated family dynamics.”—The Skimm
“Sparkling with wit, shot through with longing, Blue Sisters is a beautiful novel, both dazzlingly joyful and achingly sad.”—Jenny Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Pineapple Street
“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
“Suspended between the high of escapism and the slap of reality, the story of Avery, Bonnie, Nicky, and Lucky is a healing balm to lost souls. Blue Sisters will unearth tenderness and heartache from spectacular depths within you, giving new dimensions to the word blue.”—Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming
“Coco Mellors has the unique gift of making the picturesque, almost Wes Anderson–chic Blue sisters feel viscerally real, and it is a pleasure to be in their world even as they struggle with difficult things: grief, addiction, and generational trauma. In prose that is at times transcendently beautiful, Mellors has painted a portrait of sisterhood in all its pettiness and messiness and beauty and grace. It’s stunning.”—Rufi Thorpe, author of The Knockout Queen, a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist
“I never imagined a novel about grief could leave me feeling so warm. Coco Mellors has crafted a richly textured tale of love, loss, and addiction in all its complexities. When I made it to the final page, I had tears in my eyes.”—Isabel Kaplan, bestselling author of NSFW
“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
Library Journal
09/01/2024
A year ago, 27-year-old Nicky Blue died unexpectedly in her family's New York City apartment. While their perennially absent parents retreat upstate, the remaining Blue sisters attempt to heal, far from each other and from New York. Oldest sister Avery is a London-based lawyer and recovering heroin addict who allows herself one cigarette a day and shoplifts high-end items for a thrill, keeping the indiscretions from her wife. Following a body- and soul-crushing defeat, middle sister Bonnie, a professional boxer, flees the ring to work as a bouncer for a Los Angeles dive bar. Baby sister Lucky is an international fashion model who lives in Paris, alone but for the company of drinks and drugs. The sisters reunite in Manhattan after learning that their parents plan to sell the apartment and begin to navigate their grief, addictions, and dreams together. Mellors (Cleopatra and Frankenstein) thoughtfully uses the expanse of her second novel to fully develop the characters, including those who are secondary. Readers will root for the Blue sisters as individuals and as a family. VERDICT A stunning sibling story for fans of Emma Straub and Lily King.—Alicia Rogers
Kirkus Reviews
2024-07-04
A year after the death of their sibling, three surviving sisters are in rough straits.
Nicky Blue was the third of the four Blue sisters and, by everyone’s account, the cream of the crop—even their cold, distant mother had a soft spot for her. Though no one thought of her as a drug addict, Nicky died at 27 of a fentanyl overdose; she had become addicted to painkillers due to the unending torment of endometriosis. But now that they’ve had time to stew over it, each of the survivors can see that she should have known. Avery, the oldest at 33—she basically raised the others due to the disinterest of their mother and the alcoholism of their father—is thought of by everyone as perfect. A lawyer in London, happily married to a loving wife, 10 years sober, she’s actually utterly miserable and has begun to act out in ways that threaten to blow up her life. Bonnie, the second oldest, has already exploded hers—she ditched her career as a world-class boxer and is now likely to lose her job as a bouncer at a club in Los Angeles. Lucky, the baby of the family, is the furthest gone—a supermodel since the age of 15, she’s partying so hard day and night that even the relaxed standards of the fashion workplace can no longer accommodate her. Mellors’ sophomore novel lays a thick foundation of grief, addiction, and self-loathing before bringing these three together in New York to clean out Nicky’s stuff from their childhood apartment, which their heartless mother has decided to sell, and in short order they are just about clawing each others’ eyes out. The bad decisions, bad behavior, and bad news just keep coming until a few positive plot developments in the final chapters, then a fairy-tale epilogue. Maybe it was Mellors’ intention to challenge the reader in this way, but in the end, it seems like a lot of heavy lifting to illustrate well-worn points about sisterhood and addiction.
One does come to agree with the characters that the most likable of the group has been killed off.
