Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors follows the lives of three sisters, Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky, all recently impacted by the death of their fourth sister, Nicky. This story ebbs and flows between glimpses of the lives of the three living sisters and their personal hardships and triumphs as they move through themes of love, loss, addiction, and recovery. The story explores their journeys of trying to mend themselves and each other back together as they navigate being a set of three rather than four.
The story begins on July 4th, the first anniversary of Nicky’s death, with the youngest sister, Lucky, her whirlwind modeling career and messy lifestyle. As an international model since the age of 15, it is evident from these first few pages that Lucky is heavily involved with drugs and alcohol. The eldest daughter Avery, reaches out to both younger sisters in the first few chapters to connect with them on this solemn day, calling Lucky, who is on a train in Paris and doesn’t answer, and Bonnie, who is residing in L.A as a retired world-renowned boxer and current nightclub bouncer. From very early in the novel, we get glimpses into the personalities of the three sisters. Avery, the unofficially official caretaker of the younger two, is put together, grounded, extremely opinionated, and living what is seemingly her best life with her wife as a lawyer in London. Bonnie is very clearly a middle child, stoic, disciplined, easygoing, and a desperate problem-solver; she seems to always know how to manage her sisters’ emotions toward each other. Lucky is cynical, free, soft at her core, but most of all, she is young and unknowing of herself. These women are undoubtedly connected to their late sister Nicky, who is described as a feminine, domestic, fun-loving optimist who always chased a “normal” life.
Seeing how sisterhood connected these four women through thick and thin made this book impossible to put down. As the story unraveled, the three living sisters became more and more intertwined with each other, finding places to put their undying love for Nicky, each other, and themselves. Through all their defining moments, the sisters battled with the complexities of hope, love, and even sisterhood itself, but in reminders of the fragility and beauty of life from their sister, they found the importance of their connection to each other and learned to move forward with light.
Mellors found a way to write her sophomore novel even more stylistically fine-tuned than her first. She captured each character through their beautifully flawed moments and shone a light the many ways family shows up in young female lives. The standout quote of this novel reads: “Their family had always been good at hellos and goodbyes, moments ending even as they began. It was easy to love someone in the beginnings and endings; it was all the time in between that was so hard.” Mellors did an excellent job at following those moments in between where loving was hard.
Edited and Reviewed by Hailey Hutchison
