Blood Sisters

Jenifer DeBellis

The characters and stories within Blood Sisters hold a familiarity that is as resonant as that song you once heard—the one you remember the melody to and have been searching for ever since. These lyrical coming-of-age narratives follow the girl next door through move after move, new school after new school. In her quest to find personal truths and understand the human condition, this collection’s speaker retraces experiences that shaped her relational, sociopolitical, and sexuality views.

As the older self tells her younger self in the first poem in the collection, “Little Girl,”

You will not find love
as the life of the party, will not
stop the kids with their sticks
from bashing your chest

until your innocence breaks free & settles
at your feet like piñata candy.

Make no mistake, though. These stories are free of self-pity and melodrama. The memories within chronicle a girl’s journey to survive and surpass the working class struggles that too often become generational. Follow this girl through personal transgressions, misguided moments, and near defeats and witness her rise above circumstances to that place of self-realization where her identity, her voice, and her desire await.

Contains mature content: strong language, sexual content, graphic violence, and other mature themes.