Leigh Chen Sanders is sixteen when her mother dies by suicide, leaving only a scribbled note: 'I want you to remember'. Leigh doesn't know what it means, but when a red bird appears with a message, she finds herself travelling to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time.
Leigh is far away from home and far away from Axel, her best friend, who she stupidly kissed on the night her mother died - leaving her with a swell of guilt that she wasn't home, and a heavy heart, thinking she may have destroyed the one good thing left in her life.
Overwhelmed by grief, Leigh retreats into her art and into her memories, where colours collide and the rules of reality are broken. The only thing Leigh is certain about is that she must find out the truth. She must remember.
With lyrical prose and magical elements, Emily X.R. Pan's stunning debut novel alternates between past and present, romance and despair, as one girl attempts to find herself through family history, art, friendship, and love.
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[My mother is a bird]***
(Orion Children's Books, 22 March 2018, 480 pages, ebook, #popsugarreadingchallenge 2019, a debut novel, bought from @AmazonKindle)
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Oh my, this book tore a hole in my chest, ripped my heart out and shredded it into tiny pieces. I cried a lot reading this. A lot. I've read a lot of books and poetry collections that deal with loss and grief. It's a theme I return to again and again as a writer and a reader. The fact this book also explores suicide and how those behind cope made it even more of a must read. This is an incredibly sad book. Leigh is a great character, so lost after her mother takes her own life, struggling to understand why, struggling to find a way to live on and convinced her mother's spirit has taken the form of a bird. The first person POV works perfect here. I liked the fact despite Leigh's sorrow, grief and occasional rage at her mother for killing herself, there is a lot of love and hope as well. This is a beautiful book.