kirkusreviews.com
McNamara (The Unbinding of Mary
Reade, 2018) returns with a thrilling coming-of-age story featuring queer
girls challenging societal conventions.
Sixteen-year-old Birdie Williams, a
talented dancer, led a charmed life on Long Island until her father’s bank
collapsed and he vanished with his beloved biplane. As the Great Depression continues,
both Birdie’s would-be fiance, David, and her gorgeous best friend, Izzy, are
distant, and her mother is forced to seek financial support from family in
England. After spotting Dad’s plane on a flier for an aerial circus, Birdie
leaves what’s left of her old life behind in hopes of reuniting with him and
throws herself into performing as a wing walker to earn her keep. Yet what she
comes to learn about Dad, and about herself, as she travels with the air circus
is more complex than she expects. The third-person limited narrative alternates
between Birdie’s past and present, effectively mapping out her internal growth
over the course of the novel as she confronts her privileged upbringing and its
concomitant blind spots—as well as her suppressed romantic feelings for Izzy and
for June, a young pilot. Birdie and most other characters are assumed white
aside from two male members of the air circus: dark-skinned Bennie from New
Orleans and Milosh, who is Roma.
A thrilling, romantic adventure that
captures the emotional tenor of an unstable period in American history. (Historical
fiction. 12-18)
Add comment