Time For a Bookish Chat
Some books are so hyped it’s almost hard to read them because what if they let you down? Others slip more quietly into your consciousness, mentioned in a few Substack posts, spotted on Instagram, discussed in a podcast—murmuring in the background of your life. What’s the thing that tips you over from disinterested observer to buyer of that book? Believe me, that’s a question all publishers and most authors would love to know the answer to!
For me, there’s nothing surer than a recommendation from a friend whose tastes I trust. There are also a handful of authors whose books I’ll buy without even reading the blurb: Maggie O’Farrell, Curtis Sittenfeld, Barbara Kingsolver. But the rest of the books I buy because of the murmurs or the hype.
I love it when the hype is right. And I know that it’s certainly not the author’s fault when the hype and I don’t agree. I love it even more when I pick a book up out of the murmurs and fall in love with it. It’s like carrying a beautiful secret around, one you can’t wait to share.
And now it’s time to share. I know how much you all love books. So let’s talk about what I’ve been reading recently and also what you’ve been reading too.
Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors
This book has had a lot of hype. Coco has been on every bookish podcast I’ve listened to recently, and the book’s been all over Substack and Instagram. Kudos to her—it must be a wonderful feeling to reach so many people with your story. I have to say that the hype did make me a little wary, but in this case the hype was right. It was a five star read for me.
I’m not really going to summarise the plot because I think most people have seen it around by now. Three sisters take off to their separate corners of the world after the death of their fourth sister and eventually make their way back to one another to help sort through the contents of their family home.
Look, the start didn’t immediately grab me. It’s told in three points of view and there’s a chapter of each sister’s POV to begin. But I know as an author that those kinds of narrative structures are hard and you just have to hope that readers are willing to be patient while they get to know the characters. So I was patient, even through an extended Lucky-gone-mad scene that I thought could have been edited down a bit.
I’m glad I was patient. The thing that allowed me to be patient was Coco’s prose. It’s beautiful. She makes astute observations about human nature and phrases these observations exquisitely. I underlined many sentences. I love it when an author’s prose sings like that.
And then I fell in love with each flawed sister. I thought about the book and the characters when I wasn’t reading. I looked forward to each evening when I got to pick it back up again. From a technique perspective, I would have liked Coco to work a little harder on weaving in the backstory, rather than going for a backstory dump every now and again. But no book is ever perfect and I don’t expect them to be.
For me, five stars doesn’t mean no flaws. It means I was deeply invested in the story, that it made me feel many feelings very intensely, that I learned something both as a human and a writer, and that there were moments of awe. Blue Sisters did all of those things.