‘Blue Sisters’ Brings Color to the Shattered Souls

Content warning: Addiction, overdose, suicide, abuse.

After the global success of her debut novel “Cleopatra and Frankenstein,” Coco Mellors returned to the writing scene on Sept. 5 with a new emotional wreck, “Blue Sisters,” becoming an instant New York Times bestseller. 

A masterpiece of literary fiction, “Blue Sisters” allows the reader to peer through the window into a grieving family’s private haven. 

Mellors creates a story about three siblings — Avery, Bonnie and Lucky — as they grapple with the void left by their younger sister Nicky on the first anniversary of her death. 

Mellors starts the book with a description of true sisterhood.

“You don’t choose each other, and there’s no furtive period of getting to know the other,” Mellors writes. “You’re part of each other, right from the start.” 

The sisters were raised in a dysfunctional house with an abusive, alcoholic father and a neglectful mother. Their only refuge was each other — a both comforting and confining sanctuary. 

The central question Mellors explores is how one moves forward when a part of their haven is torn away. For the sisters, that means looking at what happens when the home they’ve built loses a brick.  

Each sister has their own chapter where the reader gets an intimate glimpse into how grief has distorted their life. The book’s alternating perspectives permit Mellors to capture grief in its most visceral, ugly form. 

The writing is cinematically raw — allowing the reader to feel like they’re watching epic moments unfold rather than reading them. The chapters are long but the story-telling flows smoothly, keeping the weighty narrative lighthearted. 

Mellors doesn’t shy away from heavy themes expanding on the topics of addiction, overdose, suicide and disintegration. Every moment is filled with heartbreak and soul-stirring topics, yet Mellors reveals something beautifully ritualistic in her writing. 

For one sister, Nicky, chronic illness consumes her life. With a growing addiction to pain medication, Nicky’s 27th birthday wish is simply “no more pills.”

“Addiction whirred through all of them like electricity through a circuit,” Mellors writes.

Avery, a recovering alcoholic, similarly becomes addicted to her caretaker role. While Avery’s convictions lead to feelings of inadequacy, Bonnie’s addiction to abstinence propels her to confidently pine for unrequited love. Lucky faces the harshest brunt of codependence, as drug abuse destroys her modeling career and relationships.

Lucky’s trauma hardens her to accept pain as inevitable. By choosing relationships that mirror the dysfunction she grew up in, Lucky perpetuates a cycle of hurt, believing it to be the norm. 

The problem with the sisters is they can only love fleeting moments — being okay with sisterhood’s messiness isn’t in their repertoire of understanding.

“Their family had always been good at hellos and goodbyes, moments ending even as they began,” Mellors writes. “It was easy to love someone in the beginnings and endings; it was all the time in between that was so hard.” 

Mellors’s writing makes sophisticated use of pastoral imagery to foreshadow impending heartbreak. The author employs striking descriptions ensuring each sentence punches with power. 

“Most pain is private. Language grasped at, but never caught,” Mellors writes. “She said it felt like crashing waves gathering momentum and receding, her insides the beaten and unyielding shore.”

The pervasive use of ocean imagery highlights Mellor’s exceptional creativity. By weaving natural elements into her narrative, she elevates the book into a vivid, almost magical exploration of human perception of pain. 

In times of despair, Mellors urges the sisters — and readers — to look up. Whether it’s Lucky slipping in and out of consciousness, Avery drawing in guilt or Bonnie standing alone in a boxing ring, there’s invariably a quiet whisper of hope. 

“As long as you are alive, it is never too late to be found,” Mellors writes, ending the prologue. 

Leaving an indelible mark long after the final page, Mellors created a book resonating with a message of hope, regardless of the darkness and depth of the ocean one might find themselves in. 

For those who appreciate stories about broken families, fractured characters and deeply affecting prose, “Blue Sisters” delivers an extraordinary experience — thanks to Mellors’s unique storytelling. 

By the end, readers will have purged all the feelings of pain only to be left with a glimmer of hope, to know hope will always be found as long as one is alive.