Blue Sisters
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Right out of the gate, I need to acknowledge that the author’s name (Coco Mellors) sounds way too similar to Cocomelon. I thought about it every time I picked up the book, although I’m probably a little laser-focused on children's stuff since I just birthed a baby nine days ago. I actually brought Blue Sisters to the hospital and read it a little (flex).
Blue Sisters is a book about four close-knit sisters who become unmoored after a tragedy. They’re forced to face their own demons during this time of independence. Will they coalesce after some personal growth, or will they let their divisions destroy the family?
I really liked the concept, but I didn’t always love the execution. The sisters get their own chapters, and seeing the different perspectives felt like a realistic portrayal of big family dynamics. I was drawn in for the first half, enjoying each sister’s journey and curious how it would pan out. But after a while, it just kept circling the drain. Because the book is centered around a horrific incident, that moment and its ensuing consequences get rehashed over and over, becoming pretty stale in the latter half.
I also cared way more about some sisters than the others. I dreaded Bonnie’s chapters, where she obsesses about her boxing career and makes cheesy comparisons from the sport to how she deals with her grief. The book also heavily emphasizes sobriety and AA, and while those chapters intrigued me, they were oversaturated.
Strangely, even though Blue Sisters deals with very heavy subject matter, it still comes across as superficial. The tragedy itself, for as much as it's talked about, feels distant and hard to pin down. The characters grappling with addiction are often painted as caricatures, exclusively driven by vices with no other personality traits. As the oldest of four, I like stories with large families and chaotic sibling dynamics, but while there were moments in this book that truly captured the nature of sisterhood, I don’t think they compensated for the larger faults of the book. Blue Sisters receives 2 out of 5 flames.
