A great review here – thanks very much Devin Pacholik

My teenage years were characterized by simultaneously not knowing anything and yet believing I knew everything. I was angry at stuff. I thought communism was right, and I especially thought my parents were stupid, and get out of my room, mother, it’s none of your business.

My point is, teenagers are confusing balls of chaos. They have to deal with their first taste of adult-like problems, but they are still regarded as children.

Amy Finch, in Alice Kuipers’ 40 Things I Want to Tell You, is caught in that in-between place, of not quite adult and kid.

A gifted and mature high school student, Amy, or Bird as she is nicknamed, is focused on preparing herself for an Oxford education. She is diligent in her studies, committed to her long-term boyfriend Griffin, her childhood friend and next-door neighbour, and is generally labelled as the predictable one by her peers.

Her best friend, a good-looking privileged young lady named Cleo, is there to push Bird out of her ivory tower once and a while. Cleo, somewhat envious of Bird’s long-term relationship, is the not-so-good example when it comes to dating a slew of guys and ignoring responsibilities. Cleo has a good heart though.

Bird’s father is a dedicated, if not somewhat manic entrepreneur investor, whose business ideas are risky, to say the least. However, his relationship with Bird’s mom is strained from years of neglect and high stress. Bird, is too distracted to notice the subtleties of her parents’ marital problems. Likewise, boyfriend Griffin’s mother is going through a mental breakdown after losing her husband.

As the deathblow to Bird’s focus, enter Pete Loewen. Pete is new at school, and the rumours about him say that he’s a bad-boy, smokin’ hot heartbreaker.

Bird makes some impulsive decisions at this point, and all of the tensions around her explode.

I hesitate to give away too much because Kuipers’ narrative charms the reader along a maze-like path of Bird’s fruition into adulthood. It’s a captivating journey.

Birds’ choices and follies are deliciously awful, written with a dramatic flair that is delicately wrought. Kuipers delivers on the hard conversations about sex, love, abortion and mental illness. There is no masking or turning away during these dialogues: we are pulled into the rawness.

Bird is the best kind of protagonist. She is the victim of her own choices, and yet she is not a dummy. Impulsive, perhaps, but she has a brain, heart and an amiable narrative voice. She is lovably flawed.

One of Bird’s pet projects throughout the novel is her website, in which she writes under the penname, Miss Take-Control-of-Your-Life, dolling out advice, “From one teen to another.”

This online dynamic prompts an existential conversation about identity, truth and reconciliation. Bird gets caught up in her persona, who is perfect, while the real-life Bird falls of the edge of her life of predictability.

via Pages and Patches.