Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - As irmãs Blue + brindes

It’s been a long time since a book made me ugly cry. About connection, longing, loss, fear, and family, this book was beautifully crafted by someone who intimately understands the human condition. As the oldest sister of five siblings, I connected with Avery but there were components of the other sisters that resonated as well. The shared grief and the different ways that each sister tried to manage that grief was heartbreakingly real. I will be thinking about the Blue sisters for a long, long time.

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katerina_l's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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issyd23's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Preferred her first book - this one took me a while to care about the sisters but I eventually got there 3💙

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cheri325's review against another edition

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4.5

Four sisters from a family filled with addiction, destructive behaviors, and dysfunction launch into the world and can't quite escape the bond that unites them. One dies unexpectedly, leaving the other three to sort out life without her.

Reading this book was like watching a train wreck but being unable to look away. The sisters aren't likable and make lots of terrible decisions. I could see the vulnerability and desire for love and acceptance running beneath all of the behavior so that this book will haunt me for a while. If you want to read it, check out the trigger warnings first.

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hellokaley's review against another edition

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emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I really enjoyed Blue Sisters, although I know this one be a read that is not for everyone. The story is rooted in grief, addiction, and complicated family dynamics, so you might need to be in the right mindset to settle in for the story.

I really enjoyed all of the characters and their unique stories and how they intertwined together. They were complicated, realistic, and lovable- and I loved their vulnerability with one another. Coco Mellors prose was beautiful and truly kept me engaged and rooting for the success of the women. I loved the theme of sisterhood, family, grief, and always being there for each other.

If you liked Hello Beautiful, I’d imagine you’d like this one too.

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gwenswoons's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This was good — it came to me as part of a monthly book subscription I have with a literary fiction-ish bent, and it definitely fit that bill. The prologue immediately captured me; I love a complicated-family saga (or a complicated family saga, true either way), and I loved the immediate characterizations of the different sisters.

I struggled at points to stay really engaged with the book. I actually love that it basically does nothing but watch our main characters reckon with grief, but to my reading there were so many moments that I felt could have been crafted ever so slightly more specifically: specific repetition done either less often or more intentionally; inconsistencies of voice that felt again less intentional than they might be (particularly in the back and forth American/British-ness of certain characters and relationships); a good number of typos, oddly. I don’t often think about this stuff but I guess I felt that as good as this is, there was an even more special book within reach and it felt a little disappointing even as I thought it was good in many ways. The choice to write in multiple POVs — one I often do love — felt like it caused the sisters to be deliberately kept separate for so much of the book; perhaps why I felt the prologue and epilogue were some of the most effective moments in the novel.

Anyway — it’s good, not (for me) great, and I’m not sure I would read more by CM. It’s sad but without big lingering impact, I think, which breaks my heart a little bit since there’s potentially so much intense and powerful stuff in here about family, addiction, grief.

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coreycbrewer's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A story of four sisters, their evolving relationship, each dealing with the challenges of their childhood, personal demons and the loss of their sister.

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