This week I have read Evie Wyld's All The Birds Singing. I struggled to get into the book to begin with, it took some time to adjust to the timelines. There is the present day, and past events, but the past ones were told backwards in the sense that the nearest to present were told first until the conclusion of that time thread was the protagonist's teenage years.
I'm glad I perservered as I did enjoy the book. I have never read anything quite like it, I suppose the only thing I can think that is similar might be the earlier books of Martin Amis.
Evie Wyld has a fresh voice and a way of storytelling which I enjoyed. The pace was good moving a long quickly with flashbacks telling the protagonist, Jake Whyte's checkered past, and how she came to be the character she is in present day.
I really liked the book, and would certainly read others by this author, but I did feel let down by the ending. I found it far too ambiguous for my taste. Personally I would have preferred either a more defined resolution that provided more answers, as I had plenty of questions! Or an abrupt ending more in keeping with the pace of the book, possibly even ending a chapter earlier than it did. But that is just my opinion, everyone brings their own ideas and thoughts to a story regardless of the author's intentions. Readers will always read a story in their own way, and take something from it that perhaps the author did not intend or foresee.
All in all, the book had an unsatisfactory ending that left me wanting more than metaphors. Despite this I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the book and Wyld's style of bringing the characters to life. I would recommend reading All The Birds Singing for it's dark yet refreshing voice that keeps you hooked, drawing you deeper into Jake's past and present, wanting to know more about this mysterious, often distant and troubled individual.
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