Listen To Your Sister: A Review

This book gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, women's intuition.

I received a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Listen To Your Sister is a horror novel by Neena Viel that tells of what happens to three Black American siblings. Calla is the eldest and is the guardian of her teenaged brother Jamie, who thinks he knows what’s best. Dre, is the middle child and while he is still older than Jamie, wants to focus on his own life. All three of the siblings wishes they could live their own life and yet none of them feel able to. Add in that for years Calla has had the same Nightmare over and over, getting more gruesome in recent weeks, and we have the makings of a tale that will not be easy to forget.

Calla’s Nightmares have prevented her from having peace. Add in family drama and work drama, Calla is bone tired. But soon she’s not the only one seeing things and as time goes on Calla is able to see her Nightmare while she’s awake. When the siblings have to go on the run, well…I won’t spoil it.

Stars: 4.5/5

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book! Like most horror novels, it begins in a terribly mundane way with Calla, our protagonist, worrying over her youngest brother Jamie, who is a "troubled teen." searching for identity in all the wrong places, feeling alone and unheard. At the same time, Calla is tired and wishes her brother Dre would help her take care of her brother.

We get to go into all three of the siblings heads and see the turn as their lives go from normal to eerie to horrific, with Nightmares coming to life, visions only the siblings can see and being on the run from things they can't explain. What I enjoy most is that the author, Neeha Viel, makes it clear that the women in this world have untapped power and as Calla's Nightmares for the last few years have allowed us to see, that power isn't always used for good, but it is used for agency.

The descriptions in this novel are so vivid that you can feel everything that is happening, you can see Calla's blood-soaked foot and hear the clang of metal on metal when she crashes her car. You can feel the relief that she feels too, later in the story. It's so palpable and visceral that your heart skips a beat and you tune out the world around you. What does it mean to be a woman, a Black woman, whose entire existence seems to depend on her relationship with her siblings? A parentified oldest sibling who protects to the point of self-sacrifice? There’s a lot of thought provoking questions in the text, it isn’t just gore or horror for the sake of gore. It’s a story on the inner monsters that sometimes escape into the real world. A wonderful read and I will be looking forward to more from this author!

Are horror novels your thing? Does this sound like a book you would read? Let me know!