A review by bethantg
Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

emotional medium-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

3.5

The writing style here is very pleasant to read - it flows in a very natural way, where I can easily read a scene and feel completely caught in it. The characters are vivid, I can see them in my head. Unfortunately, there is very little that is realistic to me about them, as I have seen them described in other reviews - these characters, to me, are straight from a movie, not from real life, and I do feel that that took away a lot of the relatability and some of the enjoyment for me while reading this. Bonnie was absolutely the most 'real' to me, but her lack of development hinders this - not that she doesn't grow as a character, but that she remains a character, a list of traits, never quite becoming a person. This is most exemplified in Lucky, who we're told is "exceptional" without ever being shown how - I think we get two comments on her having skills - and who we're simultaneously told is much more than her appearance or her body, but also that she really is so beautiful and so thin, and have we mentioned her lupine smile yet? She is so uninteresting. For a character-focused book, especially one for which the focus is heavily in her favour (eg. a Bonnie chapter skipped in favour of returning to Lucky, and another Bonnie chapter focusing entirely on Lucky), this is unfortunately a pretty significant problem.

Additionally, the book feels like it lacks purpose. It's just a little glimpse into these women's lives, but why? At the centre of the story is addiction and the pain that this brings into families suffering from it, but so little depth is given to these discussions that I gained nothing from it.
Something I found particularly difficult was how Nicky's addiction and her death were spoken about. The consensus ends up being that her sisters couldn't have done anything, but this lacks volition. It just feels like a plaster being put on the wound. Because Avery and Lucky are both shown to clearly need support when facing their addiction, and they know that Nicky didn't have this, and they acknowledge that they noticed the signs that she was struggling with this, but didn't attempt to support her through it, and allowed it to be swept under the rug. Maybe if they had supported her, she still would have died. But they don't know that, and Avery's rush to accept her mother telling her that "you're not that important," even though the importance of family support has been so central to this book, just feels like the need to accept comfort from an empty platitude. She doesn't go through the process of learning how to live with such a harrowing mistake. She just accepts these empty words, which have been proven to be untrue, and moves on. So there was no emotional release at this climactic moment, just disappointment for me.


I still do feel that this has a special place in my heart because I love books about family :D
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