Name: jess's review of The Meaning of Birds by Jaye Robin Brown
Item: The Meaning of Birds
Rating: 3
Author: jess

Jaye Robin Brown

“An evocative story of the thrills of first love and the anguish of first loss. This will break you and heal you.”—Julie Murphy, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dumplin’ Not to be missed by fans of Nina LaCour and Becky Albertalli, this powerful novel—from the acclaimed author of Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit—paints a poignant portrait of love in the past, grief in the now, and the healing power of art. Before: Jess has always struggled with the fire inside her. But when she meets Vivi, everything changes. As they fall for each other, Vivi helps Jess deal with her anger and pain and encourages her to embrace her artistic talent. And suddenly Jess’s future is a blank canvas, filled with possibilities. After: When Vivi unexpectedly dies, Jess’s perfect world is erased. As she spirals out of control, Jess pushes away everyone around her and throws out her plans for art school. Because art is Vivi and Vivi is gone forever. Right when Jess feels at her lowest, she makes a surprising friend who just might be able to show her a new way to channel her rage, passion, and creativity. But will Jess ever be able to forge a new path for herself without Vivi? A beautiful exploration of first love and first loss, this novel effortlessly weaves together past and present to tell a profound story about how you can become whole again when it seems like you’ve lost the most important part of yourself.

The Meaning of Birds

jess

Courtney 

The book has been on my shelf for more than a year and finally picked it up. It's a light read with a heavy topic that lingers all over the pages. It's sad, heartbreaking, as annoying as raw emotion could get, it's just nice.

Inez

This book was so hard to read. Not because it was bad, but because it dealt with grief and the aftermath of loss. Jaye Robin Brown writes a really emotional, moving story about dealing with compounded grief - which is, like, really hard to deal with.

I related to Jess so much, honestly; I don't struggle with anger management, and I've never lost a girlfriend or close friend. But I can understand her reactions and lashing out and isolating herself because I've been in such a similar place before. The Meaning of Birds doesn't skimp on how Jess struggles with everything after losing Vivi, and I could sympathize entirely with how hard it is to readjust to normal life and how Jess feels like she shouldn't be happy without Vivi. A lot of the side characters frustrated me, though; it felt like they were pressuring Jess to just "move on" from Vivi's death, Levi especially.

I really adored Jess and Vivi's relationship, though - they were incredibly cute, and I felt Jess's love for Vivi and how painful it was for her to lose Vivi. Usually I'm not fond of books that constantly go between the past and the present, but I think it worked really well for this book. It showed Jess's life with Vivi and how happy they both were, and contrasted it to after Vivi and Jess learning to find her way without Vivi. Here, I feel like the flashbacks added more of an emotional punch to the book than if it had just been divided into two sections.

One thing I liked is that The Meaning of Birds showed compounded grief, which is when a person experiences loss without really recovering from previous loss, and it isn't something that you see in YA too often. Jess's father had passed several years before Vivi, and her feelings about both get tangled up. I definitely think there are teens out there who might find this book helpful in knowing they're not alone. Losing one person can dredge up old feelings, and I don't think that's talked about enough, in YA or anywhere. The book doesn't prescribe some deeper meaning to death. Sometimes people die for no reason at all, seemingly out of the blue, and there's no pretending otherwise in this book.

Another part that I felt was really important was how art was talked about as something that was both painful yet a way to cope. Jess is an artist, but after Vivi's death, art is too painful for her to do, so she turns to blacksmithing instead as another art form, which was really neat. I also loved Greer and Eliza; they were probably my favourite side characters. We love adorable supportive lesbians. But Jess's blooming interest in blacksmithing shows that it's possible to find new, healthy things you enjoy after a loss. I really understood Jess's feelings around art after Vivi died, and it was good to see her accept that it's okay to grow and change.

There were a few things I felt were a tad questionable that took away from my experience of reading it. A couple off-hand comments about asexuality, bi/pansexuality, and trans women that rubbed me the wrong way, for example. These comments are not directly a/bi/trans-phobic, but it struck me as a bit iffy, especially because some of Jess's views were never really addressed or challenged, and they were casual comments that didn't add much to the story altogether.

Yes, this is a tragic book about a young lesbian losing her girlfriend, but it shows her learning to cope with it, even if there's no "getting over" it. I think a lot of teens dealing with loss of all types could use this book. However, anyone who reads this should definitely have some tissues nearby, because--as you'd expect--it is horribly sad.

content warnings: death of a parent, death of a loved one, grief

Thanks to Edelweiss and HarperCollins for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review. 

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Sierra

I will preface this review by saying that there are many trigger warnings for this book. Even if you choose not to read the rest of this review, please look up the trigger warnings. It can be a heavy book as the plot is the main character dealing with the intense grief that comes from the result of losing someone close. Other triggers include sexual assault, biphobia/panphobia, aphobia, multiple usages of the d slur, homophobia, among many others. This book does have some references to Harry Potter as well. Now onto the review.

This book's chapters alternate between events before and after Vivi's death and we view the story from Jess' perspective. Jess isn't really a lovable character, especially as the story progresses. She has anger management issues that she attends therapy for and she's not so bad as a character until some of her dialogue with others begins. First of all, I hated how she was aphobic towards her best friend. As someone who doesn't date and feels the constant pressure from everyone around me to date, this hit too close to home. Jess' repeated harassment of her best friend's refusal to date was too far for me. It's not okay to continuously bring it up and purposefully embarrass someone about it. That was one of my first strikes. Then we read a scene between Jess and Vivi where Vivi explains that she would be potentially interested in guys and maybe even fluid people (it doesn't explicitly tell us whether she's bisexual, pansexual, or anything else) and Jess becomes angry and invalidates Vivi. This is extremely problematic and is something that is present in the LGBTQIA+ community that needs to stop. The scene was very biphobic/panphobic and made me really begin to resent Jess. While I understand that she is dealing with a lot both before and after the death of Vivi, none of this excuses her behavior towards her friends. Frankly, some of her behavior made me wonder how she has managed to even keep the few friends she does have. And her trying to coerce Vivi into sex and talking about how she'd get her to consent eventually was awful. I won't even write out the inner monologue of that scene because I want to forget it forever. That was unacceptable and really angered me. The last strike against Jess before I deemed her a completely awful character was when she kissed a guy and thought that it can't be cheating if she's a lesbian. Like, girl, I hate to break it to you, but it most definitely is. Jess really needed to reevaluate herself and her many awful decisions and perhaps actually consider those around her and their feelings for once. 

Since The Meaning of Birds is considered a young adult novel, with all the problematic scenes and dialogue in the book, I really wouldn't recommend it as YA. Teens are an impressionable crowd and with the problematic scenes not discussed properly and there no distinguishing moments of "Hey, this isn't okay and this is why it isn't okay", it could leave some bad impressions. It would've been one thing if the book explained some of the more problematic moments and had the characters address them, but Jess would literally say something awful and the other character wouldn't address it or there didn't appear to be an impression left when there most definitely should have been. This book is kinda the blueprint of what not to do and is not the coming-of-age tale I thought it was going to be.

Despite my dislike of the main character, the story itself wasn't too bad. It did portray grief well in my opinion, but everyone does experience it differently. It can be a heavy book at times though. I liked the positivity around artists, especially the unique inclusion of female blacksmiths. That was kinda badass and it is certainly an underappreciated field. I did like Eliza and Greer and how they take Jess under their wing. Jess definitely needed some decent mentors and they seemed fun. I liked the alternating chapters before and after Vivi's death although perhaps it didn't portray the main messages of the story as strong as I had hoped. Vivi's cause of death is one that I think people too far often overlook and is a reminder that sometimes death is closer than you think.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend it based on so much of Jess's dialogue, especially for younger and impressionable readers. This is definitely NOT just a sad coming-of-age story like you might be led to believe. With its many triggers and underdeveloped characters, you can find better sapphic reads and representation elsewhere. It's not really worth the few cute moments and maybe one scene that may make you a little teary-eyed.

Read at your own risk.

I was really looking forward to reading this and had high hopes that I would love it but unfortunately it didn't live up to my expectations. Aside from all the problematic elements to this book- shaming for body and sexuality, which was never challenged, and Jess pressuring Vivi into sex several time , and each time brushing over it with Jess more or less saying, “its fine i can wait” BUT CONTINUES TO BRING UP SEX WHEN VIVI SAYS SHE ISN’T READY. I really disliked two important side characters, Cheyanne and Nina, both because they’re selfish af and as well as the main character, Jess. Jess was grieving and of course I understand that, but she treated the people around her like crap and was constantly hurting those that cared about her, AND SHE KNEW SHE WAS DOING IT. I cannot excuse people who treat others like sh*t because of what they are going through, I get it your girlfriend died but no need to hurt your mom and best friends because of it.
Though I did really enjoy reading about Vivi but I wish I could have read more about her, might have saved this book.

izzy

decimal rating: 3.12 stars 

the meaning of birds is a ya contemporary that follows the dual timelines of jess's budding romance with her girlfriend vivi as well as her grieving over vivi's untimely death. vivi encourages jess's love of the arts, and after she's gone, jess finds herself dealing with immense grief as well as struggling with school, her hobbies, and her other relationships. 

i thought that this book really had a lot to say about grief, especially for how it can impact teens. jess's struggle with losing both her father as a child and vivi as a teenager is depicted in an relatable and nuanced manner. the use of dual timelines in the novel also contributes to showing how jess changes as a person and how this is related to how she's processing grief at different times. in addition, i appreciate how the grief that jess deals with is ultimately not magically solved by romance in the end, but still maintains a hopeful tone. 

in the novel, jess is an aspiring artist, and i think the author captures her artistic creativity believably. when jess reflects about her work, the reader can see how much of herself that she pours into her art, and how this relates to the bigger picture of her life. vivi, jess's girlfriend, is an avid birder, and i like how she also has her own hobby, and it actually relates to the overarching plot of the novel in a well-constructed way. 

in the skips between some chapters, it feels like the pacing is a bit off. the dialogue is a little stiff and clunky where there is a saturation of pop culture references and slang thrown in, without seeming to have much real purpose, although that could just be personal preference. in addition, jess does not treat her best friend cheyanne well, but her final apology to chey seems kind of weak and the situation is resolved too quickly.

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The Meaning of Birds by Jaye Robin Brown

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