Birdy by Jess Vallance

How did I get the book? Blogger Event

Genre: Contemporary

Synopsis: A darkly compulsive tale of friendship and obsession.

Frances Bird has been a loner for as long as she can remember. But when she is asked to look after the new girl at school, the sparky Alberta Black, they soon become inseparable, doing everything together, and even creating their own sign of togetherness – a blackbird. After a while though, Bert wants to do things without Frances, and see other people without her there. And that won’t do…No that won’t do at all…

200words (or less) review: Jess Vallance’s debut delivers all the things I want from dark contemporary stories. It pulls you in and doesn’t let go. Birdy takes you down a path you know will end up in disaster but you can’t not follow it because you need to how this turns out – just what happened?

Frances has been a loner at school forever, she doesn’t mind it and when her teacher asks her to look after the new girl, Alberta Black, she makes it clear it’ll only be for a few days.

Birdy’s (aka Frances) is a brilliant but unreliable narrator. Her perspective is skewed by her desire to protect Alberta who’s been home-schooled up until this point. Bert is the creative and outgoing of the two and now going out after school and trying out make-up are suddenly fun things, not the to be sneered at outings from before. But there are secrets in Alberta’s past and they don’t stay hidden, not from Frances.

This book is a toxic friendship story at its best. It’s compelling and twisted.

Recommend it?

Absolutely

Expected publication:
July 2nd 2015 by Hot Key Books