Blue Sisters
Coco Mellors, 2024
Contemporary fiction Literary fiction
Three sisters return to the apartment where they grew up, carrying grief, rivalry and the question of whether they can be a family without the one who held them together. This novel feels like a sharp and tender exploration of family bonds, balancing moments of deep grief with witty, honest observations about memory.
Feels like grief, tenderness and wonder. About family, society and memory.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy literary fiction that examines complex family dynamics and the nuances of sibling relationships. Be prepared for a book that is deeply introspective and focuses on emotional texture over plot momentum.
Why read it
This book gives you a chance to explore what it means to be family when the central figures are navigating loss and internal rivalry.
A page from the book
Why calling a close friend a sister can feel like a small betrayal.
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. Coco Mellors.Mellors was raised in London and studied at NYU; Blue Sisters is her second novel, after Cleopatra and Frankenstein (2022).
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Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Blue Sisters for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy literary fiction that examines complex family dynamics and the nuances of sibling relationships. Be prepared for a book that is deeply introspective and focuses on emotional texture over plot momentum.
- What is Blue Sisters like?
- This novel feels like a sharp and tender exploration of family bonds, balancing moments of deep grief with witty, honest observations about memory. Feels like grief, tenderness and wonder. About family, society and memory.
- What should I read after Blue Sisters?
- If you liked Blue Sisters, try One Italian Summer (Rebecca Serle), To All the Boys I've Loved Before (Jenny Han) and All the Dangerous Things (Stacy Willingham).
A taste of the feed
The sister who decides things cleanly, and the one who can’t.
I wave a spoonful of cookie dough under Margot’s nose, and she hesitates and then opens her mouth. I feed it to her like a baby. “Wait and see, you and Josh will be back together in a day, maybe two.” But even as I’m saying it, I know it’s not true. Margot’s not the kind of girl to break up and get back together on a whim; once she’s decided something, that’s it. There’s no waffling, no regrets. It’s like she said: when she’s done, she’s just done.
To All the Boys I've Loved Before · Jenny Han
What it costs to love someone you knew was only passing through.
I had come to think of him as a library book, entering my life on rented time. Something that I could enjoy for a few hours, curled up and comfortable, devouring as much of him as possible before our time was up. And because he wasn’t mine, I couldn’t scribble in the margins or write my name on the spine; I couldn’t leave my mark on him in any discernable way.
All the Dangerous Things · Stacy Willingham
Time doesn't heal so much as hand you something to wear over the wound.
Maybe time didn’t heal wounds exactly, but it gave you a kind of armor, or a new perspective. A way to remember with a smile instead of a sob.
Night Road · Kristin Hannah
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