Lush, cozy prose ... Though not all of Mellors’s metaphors land...and her prose can collapse into sentimentality, she is nonetheless able to capture the ferality, stickiness and beauty of both sisterhood and grief.
The characterisation of each of the sisters is strong, offering a complexity and humanity that elevates what at times reads as quite tedious exposition of the past, repetition of thought, and frustratingly slow forward momentum ... Mellors’ debut highlighted her talent for a twinkling turn of phrase and clever wordplay, but one that was weakened by its overuse. This tendency to over-write, over-explain and tell all in often excruciating detail prevails here ... The main narrative is not centred on lovers this time, but the sibling chemistry crackles, which ultimately delivers a sophomoric story from Mellors with a more convincing heartbeat.
The decision to centre the novel round a family rather than a disparate group of youthful hedonists immediately makes Blue Sisters feel warmer and more mature. The heart of the novel is love and grief, not lust and ambition. The protagonists feel more real too, with little quirks that elevate them beyond the novelistic equivalent of an Instagram highlights reel ... while Mellors tries to include a few working class people in the novel, it’s a half-hearted attempt...But these blips are more forgivable when there is a core of humanity at the novel’s heart ... That hope, the turn away from Cleopatra and Frankenstein’s cocaine-fuelled nihilism, is what redeems and matures Blue Sisters.
