Sarah O'Connor

I received this book from River Street Writing in exchange for an honest review. 

“We may be nomadic and seem a little lost to people, but we’ve stripped away all the nonsense here. What’s the rush to get back to a conventional life? What’s the rush to go back and become good little corporate citizens, and lose our opportunity to truly pursue the things that matter to us without worrying about ‘the game?'” (Green 14).After attending a concert for a band called the Open Road, a young woman renames herself Kait and becomes a Yellow Bird, choosing to live nomadically and travel from town to town with other Yellow Birds to each of their shows. She ends up joining a messy van with a ragtag group of misfits and butting heads with some of them when one night a man named Horizon sits beside her and changes everything.

I don’t read a lot of books about music and tours. It isn’t a topic that’s high on my list of interests, so it’s always nice when one arrives in the mail to force me to read about something I wouldn’t usually look for myself.

I think Green is a talented writer and really enjoyed the prose of the novel. Green perfectly detailed the the grungy, chaotic, groupie lifestyle and detailed about how Kait and the other Yellow Birds really were just misfits or people running away from something who had found a home with others who didn’t fit in or were also trying to escape hardships.

I thought Kait was a good narrator though I was disappointed by how little self-reflection was involved in regards to herself. Even by the end she didn’t seem to care about any of the people she left behind who did care about her. I also didn’t like how obsessive she became over Horizon and didn’t expect the book to focus so much on their romance. And the formatting of the book itself is weird. Before the first part of the book begins a couple of paragraphs appear on the left side of the page directly beside it on what should be a separate page. My guess that since this was published through an indie publisher they may just be trying not to waste any unnecessary printing of blank pages, which I respect. I just haven’t read a book formatted that way before.

Still though, it’s a good read. If you like Daisy Jones and the Six and other fictional touring bands and their groupies, then Yellow Birds is a book you’ll be sure to enjoy!

Publication: March 5 2024
Publisher: re:books
Pages: 200 pages (Paperback)
Source: River Street Writing
Genre: Fiction, Canadian, Romance
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤.5
Summary:

Yellow Birds is a can’t-put-down novel about groupies known as “The Yellow Birds”. It isn’t about groupies loving music, it’s about the groupie lifestyle and the party within the party. They say they’re there for the music, but most of them are running away from someone or something in their past and trying to figure out their future amidst the chaos. Yellow Birds is inspired by The Grateful Dead and their loyal fans.