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A review by bookbybook
If These Wings Could Fly by Kyrie McCauley
5.0
I received this book in exchange for an honest review. This in no ways changes my opinion and all the words below are my own. My review is based on an advanced copy of the book and may not fully reflect the finished copy.
This review is going to be a bit shorter and more scattered than usual because normally when I review a book I write down my thoughts/feelings every time I put it down. However, with this book, I read it in three chunks so there were very few notes other than “I LOVE IT".
One big note I did take away from this book is that this is EXACTLY the kind of strong female character I want to read about more often. I think when young adult readers specifically are looking for the "strong female character" trope they lean towards pretty much everything other than contemporary because we want to see a powerful lady snap an elf's neck with a single glance or stand up to a dystopian dictator. This book is put under contemporary and magic realism but the main character herself is not really magical and it could not at all be considered a fantasy. Our main character, Leighton, is the most incredible example of a real-life strong female character. I'm going to try not to spoil things but she has the kind of story that needs to be told, and she took back power in her life in a way that was almost brutally realistic. I just love how she was written and how real she was without being bland or hard to read about. All of the characters were beautifully real, really. So many books that are tackling a strong issue become tunnel-visioned and none of the characters outside that problem get life in them or have any other problems, which is understandable because too many topics make writing hard, but it is also not how real life works. If These Wings Could Fly annihilated that! Domestic violence, abusers being victims, racial minorities, authority figures turning a blind eye, so many good things that all happen in real life at the same time got addressed.
The second thing is actually a big part of why I was interested in the book in the first place. Crows are my favourite animal. I've loved them pretty much my whole life (tiny me had a crow as my imaginary friend). So I was really interested to see just how they played into the book without it being a fantasy, and I was very pleased. Another topic that's a bit hard to describe without spoilers but I loved how clear it was that the author actually dug into in for about crows and didn't just look at some out her window and call it good.
Finally, I just want to say that this is my first five-star read of 2020, and already on my top books of the year list event though it's only February so if you enjoy contemporary books please go get a copy when it comes out!
This review is going to be a bit shorter and more scattered than usual because normally when I review a book I write down my thoughts/feelings every time I put it down. However, with this book, I read it in three chunks so there were very few notes other than “I LOVE IT".
One big note I did take away from this book is that this is EXACTLY the kind of strong female character I want to read about more often. I think when young adult readers specifically are looking for the "strong female character" trope they lean towards pretty much everything other than contemporary because we want to see a powerful lady snap an elf's neck with a single glance or stand up to a dystopian dictator. This book is put under contemporary and magic realism but the main character herself is not really magical and it could not at all be considered a fantasy. Our main character, Leighton, is the most incredible example of a real-life strong female character. I'm going to try not to spoil things but she has the kind of story that needs to be told, and she took back power in her life in a way that was almost brutally realistic. I just love how she was written and how real she was without being bland or hard to read about. All of the characters were beautifully real, really. So many books that are tackling a strong issue become tunnel-visioned and none of the characters outside that problem get life in them or have any other problems, which is understandable because too many topics make writing hard, but it is also not how real life works. If These Wings Could Fly annihilated that! Domestic violence, abusers being victims, racial minorities, authority figures turning a blind eye, so many good things that all happen in real life at the same time got addressed.
The second thing is actually a big part of why I was interested in the book in the first place. Crows are my favourite animal. I've loved them pretty much my whole life (tiny me had a crow as my imaginary friend). So I was really interested to see just how they played into the book without it being a fantasy, and I was very pleased. Another topic that's a bit hard to describe without spoilers but I loved how clear it was that the author actually dug into in for about crows and didn't just look at some out her window and call it good.
Finally, I just want to say that this is my first five-star read of 2020, and already on my top books of the year list event though it's only February so if you enjoy contemporary books please go get a copy when it comes out!