A beautiful read: sisters battling grief and addiction- what once was the 4 Blue sisters has now become 3 after Nicky overdosed unexpectedly, leaving the rest of them lost and on the run from themselves in different parts of the world. a year after her death, they are called back to the apartment they grew up in to go through Nicky’s belongings, each of the Blue sisters carrying a different burden: the eldest worn and weary from taking care of her sisters (SO felt with all the eldest sibling affliction in the book); the middle sister a boxer quietly in love with her trainer; the youngest an addict unable to find her way.

I can’t really understand any of the sisters- self-sabotaging (so exasperating), passive, childish, selfish. They didn’t really interact much with each other, spending each of their respective chapter perspectives mostly separately in their own lives. With addiction plaguing the Blue family in different ways, I’d also expected a fuller picture of its ability for destruction. Surprisingly addiction is talked about in practical terms like AA meetings and waking up disorientated and confused, but never really explored in depth- a couple paragraphs on the effects of an absent explosive father and a sister’s denial of being an addict. 

Although I think there’s nothing life-changing or powerful about the story or message, the characterisation and first-person narratives are immersive and painfully familiar, the prose very compelling and beautiful. There is a lot of grief wrought in the characters and a lot of love, Mellors writing emotionally and intimately to our desires and fears- love and loneliness… and who’s not a sucker for a book about that😔