REVIEW: The Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

 

This is Ms. Mellors second novel and boy was it a doozy (in a good way!). We meet four sisters that are now three - Avery, Bonnie, Nicky and Lucky. The three remaining sisters - Avery, Bonnie and Lucky - are trying to come to terms with Nicky's death by overdose. When we meet them, it is the one year anniversary of her death.  Their mother is threatening to sell the apartment that they grew up in and the same apartment that Nicky was living and died in one year previously. Since Nicky's death, things have seemed to change since the glue that kept them together - Nicky - is now gone. 

Avery is the oldest and in some ways, very much a stereotype. She's Type A and a lawyer, having gotten there after getting sober. She is serious and a perfectionist - she feels compelled in a way to keep all the sisters well and care for them, as well as her mother. Avery, however, is a kleptomaniac. Bonnie, the second oldest, is a boxer. She had a professional boxing career that ended abruptly with a loss right around the time that Nicky died and she harbors a romantic love to her trainer, Pavel. Lucky is the youngest. She's a model that struggles with drugs and alcohol and partying.  The three return to NYC in an effort to stop the sale of the apartment and to pack Nicky's things. 

I loved this book.  The characters are amazingly deep and the book deals with the theme of generational trauma, including how it impacts different people differently even though they were all raised in the same environment. I loved how it also addressed how substance misuse and addiction can appear in different forms. Definitely a heavy book but well worth it in the end.