Book Review: Wild Bird

 by Sophia Chen

Wendelin van Draanen is an American young adult author. She's most well known for her book Flipped, centered around two new neighbors who fall in and out of love with each other, and that's how I got to know her work too. I read Flipped and loved it. I loved the cheesiness of the romance, the humor, the accurate portrayal of idiotic hormonal teenagers -- I wanted more. So I scrolled through van Draanen's author page on a Champaign library computer and found another of her most popular YA novels -- Wild Bird. I borrowed the book.

As you may know if you've read both books, Wild Bird was a huge change in tone from Flipped.

The book's main character, Wren Clemens, is a teenage girl who has gone astray. She deals drugs for her three-years-older pseudo-boyfriend Nico, steals money from her parents to buy weed (which she smokes in the school bathroom with her toxic best friend Meadow), and carves swastikas in her dead grandmother's cherished piano. Therapy doesn't work, nor hardhanded discipline. Her parents no longer know what to do with her. So, naturally, they send her to wilderness therapy camp.

The book spans only six weeks, the entirety of her stay in the New Mexico desert, but a lot can happen in a short amount of time. Over the course of those six weeks, Wren learns to survive on her own in the brutal conditions of the desert, reflects on her past mistakes, and starts to heal.

As the book alternates between her present experiences and her past memories, we learn how she struggled to make friends at her new school in suburban California, and how she was constantly overshadowed by her perfect sister Anabella, who could do no wrong in the eyes of their parents and teachers. We learn how she met Meadow, the first person who was willing to give her a chance, and Nico, the first person who thought her capable. We learn how, slowly, unwittingly, she was led off the righteous path.

Based off of the true stories of dozens of teenagers -- kids, really -- who went off the rails, who survived, who healed, Wild Bird was truly an amazing experience. The writing is raw and stark in a way that makes you envision what's on the page without trying. The dialogue is fast, funny, and cuttingly sarcastic. More than that, the story is a beautiful one: hopeful, insightful, joyful, and often deeply sad as well. Just like life is.

As you can probably tell, I loved this book. It wasn't what I expected from van Draanen, not at all, not after reading Flipped, but it might just have been what I was looking for. 10/10.