In my quest to continue to refine my “taste” in literature, I’ll admit I’ve thrown away the concept of “don’t judge a book by its cover.” I’ve decided instead to say f*** it and I picked up the prettiest cover I’ve ever seen. That’s how I found Coco Mellors. Thankfully none of her books have been My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018) by Ottessa Moshfegh level of bad. Mellors has quickly become a buy-on-sight author for me, and the more I learn about her, her story, and her journey to writing, the more I fall in love with her work.
Mellors’ start in her writing career wasn’t glamorous. She has countless rejections under her belt and spent the majority of her career working as a copywriter, but she nonetheless persisted in her dream of getting her manuscript published. Thank goodness for that, otherwise I’d never have gotten my hands on either Cleopatra and Frankenstein (2022) or Blue Sisters (2024).
Now I like Cleopatra and Frankenstein, but we’re not going to talk about it today. I want to talk about Blue Sisters because for me it stuck for far longer after I finished reading it.
Having sisters is a love-hate relationship — at least I’m assuming, I only have two older brothers — and the Blue sisters are no different. Once a quartet, now a trio spread out all over the world, Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky finally start to process their sister Nicky’s death as their own lives implode a year later. All three sisters make major mistakes that send them running back to the safety of New York City and the apartment their sister died in.
The story is by no means all that fast-paced, but what it does really well is keep the reader interested. Mellors dips into the past and resurfaces in the present, alternating between the three sister’s perspectives. With multiple perspective books there’s always that one storyline that just sucks — except for this one. Each sister messes up throughout and seeing them all try to pull themselves back together is so satisfying.
Not only was there excellent queer representation, but Mellors also shows endometriosis, addiction, and mental health in such a real way. Even Bonnie, who doesn’t have a substance addiction, is still an addict. She searches for the feeling of being outside her body and at times uses discipline as a way to push herself too far. Mellors’ writing puts you in the shoes of her characters powerfully. One moment you will be frustrated with each character’s decision and then the next you can’t help but empathize with what they’re dealing with.
I really like the scene-by-scene way that Mellors writes. It gives you a quick in and out of the story. Maybe it’s my commitment issues, but I love when a scene feels whole in itself. I could read one chapter and not have to rely on the chapters surrounding it to give me its full context within the story. Mellors has spoken about how she approached a lot of her writing as just one scene after another, playing with the same characters until, after a lot of refinement, it all came together.
Mellors is not one to glamourize. The book is really about being messy in relationships and grief, but knowing that there’s people out there who still love you. There’s also an underlying theme of survivors’ guilt. Each sister reflects on how their own lives have to continue without Nicky. Everyone who’s dealt with grief can understand that feeling.
I think this quote from the book perfectly encapsulates what Mellors is doing with it:
“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?”
