Listen to Your Sister by Neena Viel is a nightmare about nightmares. My opinion is I did not like this book, and sometimes I hide that fact to the end. But Listen to Your Sister never gelled with me. The back half of the book was way better than the first half. The premise of the book was very solid and a great idea. The story revolves around an older sister, 24, who is raising her 16-year-old younger brother. She has also helped and given up a lot for her 23-year-old brother. So she has sacrificed a lot. Each sacrifice brings forth a demon that rests in her head. Then, something happens in this book that releases them all. It has a great premise it was one of the reasons I picked the book. I ended up hating most of the characters, Jamie and Dre feel like caricatures rather than characters. At the midway point is when they start to get developed but it is way too long. I did like Calla the sister character and found her the only redeeming quality of the book. I had a hard time picturing the words and actions of the characters. Most of the book is a nightmare come to life. Dream logic is a very hard thing to get right and make sense. This book has no rules whatsoever. I almost feel like the author has ADHD because there were so many tangents. There’s a scene at the end. A character is in water and drowning. Flashbacks occur in the middle of a dream, making me forget the character is drowning. The book is all about the trauma of an uninterrupted life and would Calla’s life be better without her brothers. The themes of trauma are throughout but the writing lets down the themes. Listen to Your Sister was an ambitious debut for author Neena Viel. I wanted to like this book but did not connect. I received Listen to Your Sister from Netgalley and St. Martin’s Griffin. Listen to Your Sister was published on February 4, 2025.

Plot Summary: Jamie is in trouble at High School for smoking weed on the campus. Calla his guardian and sister has to attend a meeting to discuss his future. Jamie was found with a large bag of weed, the school was worried about him dealing. Jamie blames the school for being racist. Calla has to keep explaining that she is not the mother but the sister. Dre, Calla’s other brother, comes into the meeting covered in flour from work. He takes responsibility for the weed to prevent it from going into custody. Jamie gets suspended which messes Calla’s schedule up with work. Jamie doesn’t care that he’s ruining Calla’s life. She asks him to return home and stay there. She also asks Dre if he can help out, but he brushes it off. Jamie instead goes to a rally against the police. He is in charge of the van and giving weapons to people. Chaos happens at the rally where the van that had explosives blows up next to the police station. Jamie was out of the van investigating something strange. An officer chases him down and they start fighting the police officer has his gun on him. Before Jamie can act the officer is shot by a little girl. Jamie is freaked out and thinks no one will believe a little girl did this. Dre has a break in his place. He is close to dying. A mysterious person enters the room. They help him. Dre can’t remember what happened but is found in blood with a bloody baseball bat in his hands. Calla who was worried about Jamie being out tries to sleep and dreams of both instances like she was there. The brothers finally go to their sister and she gets an Airbnb cabin deep in the woods to lay low. At the cabin, they learn they are not as safe as they thought. Meanwhile, we learn more about Calla’s dreams.

What I Liked: Calla was a great character. I liked all the layers that she had. I enjoyed her flashback scenes and how much she sacrificed for her brothers. I liked what the story was trying to say about trauma manifesting. The ending was focused and fixed some of the writing at the end. The book doesn’t hold back, and the characters do go through hell with no one being safe. The premise of the story is great.

What I Disliked: The tangents are distracting. There are too many Sponge Bob references at odd times. This book loves its Sponge Bob and Anime references. When they worked it was lovely when something was randomly compared to Sponge Bob it did not work. There wasn’t enough explanation of what was going on. Weird things happened, and I would have to read a couple of times. Sometimes, I still didn’t know what was going on. Later, a character would explain what was happening, and then it made sense. The setting of a cabin in the woods did not make sense, since all the dreams take place in Florida. The mom of Calla, Dre, and Jamie is estranged. However, they could have gone back there. It would have made the book better. Jamie was not written well, it takes so long for his personality to show that he felt like a cliche. Jamie does get a personality eventually but way too late.

Recommendation: I did not enjoy this book at all. I still feel like the premise is very clever. I wanted this book to be good. Most debut authors over explain. But, this book did not explain enough. I was left lost on most of it. The writing style reminded me of Tamsyn Muir who will throw out random references but make them work. I will not recommend my followers to read this book. Where I did not like this book there are reviewers that I follow who do. I will admit that this book unfortunately had to follow James by Percival Everett in my reading list. That book is one of the best I have ever read.

Rating: Listen to Your Sister by Neena Viel I rated 1.9 out of 5.