Jess Vallance, Birdy, Hot Key Books/Five Mile Press, 1 July 2015, 272pp., $16.95 (pbk), ISBN 9781471404665
Birdy is the first novel from Jess Valance, and it’s a powerful debut. Frances Bird is a high school student and a loner. She lives with her elderly grandparents and has never had a real friend. That changes when a new girl starts school and Frances is asked to show her around. Alberta has been home schooled her whole life, and has travelled the world with her parents. She is quite knowledgeable and worldly in some ways, but completely inexperienced in negotiating high school. Frances and Alberta become friends immediately, and Frances revels in her first friendship. But is Alberta everything she seems? Is their friendship what she thinks it is?
This is a very good first novel – things are shown but not told, and space is left for the reader to interpret actions and events. Frances is an interesting and believable character, and the narrator of the story. The novel is well structured and carefully layered to build up to the reveal.
Recommended for upper secondary and public libraries. Teenage girls would particularly relate, though the cover would not be off-putting for boys who wanted to read it.
Reviewed by Rebecca Kemble