Monday, July 18, 2011

Book Review: Songbird by Angela Fristoe



 
Songbird by Angela Fristoe
Publisher: Little Prince Publishing
Publish Date: June 30, 2011
Paperback, 280 pages 
Fiction, Young Adult
 ISBN: 978-0615470498






My Review:

My thoughts:  I found Songbird to be a beautiful and honest book to read.  I enjoyed reading about Dani and her love for Reece, who is her best friend.  However she believes the Reece does not love her back and her heart breaks a little each time he watches him go out with another girl.  Then a boy shows up at her school and he looks familiar but Dani can't place him, she only knows she wants to stay away from Colin.  Switching between flashbacks and her current life you get a real feel for what Dani has gone through in her life to make her into the girl she is today and I as the reader really marveled at how grounded she was despite the hand she had been dealt.  But she was lucky.   She had been given a steady foster family, the Thompsons, and a steady friend in Reece.

Then Reece invites her to the Homecoming Dance and things change, and then they change again and Dani's world turns upside down and she has to figure out how to make things right again and whether she wants to make things right again because suddenly Colin is in her life and he and she work through some things together and become close friends.  As their friendship grows and Reece grows jealous things become tense.  Dani waffles back and forth and some suspense is thrown in.  More flashbacks and more suspense make for an even better book, one that I could not seem to put down.

And in the end I was happy.  I liked the outcome.  I felt it was a real outcome and even though I wanted more I thought it was a great way to end this book.  I really liked all the characters.  I did not like the way they behaved sometimes, but that's teenagers and adults alike, they don't act like they should at all times, as Dani, Reece and Colin display as well as Dani, Reece and Colin's parents as well.  Songbird is a great book, it's entertaining, it has some lessons that can be learned, it has some romance and it has some great friendships.  I really enjoyed the book.


My Rating: 4.5/5.0


About the Book:
There are defining moments in life when everything changes. For Dani Mays, it was the day she witnessed her father kill her brother. Now seventeen, she still hasn't put it behind her.

After Jace's death, she bounced between her alcoholic mother and foster homes until she found a permanent place. And a reason to want to stay: Reece Tyler. He's her best friend, yet Dani wants more from him.

Faced with losing Reece, Dani struggles to define his place in her life and escape the influence the memories of her brother's death have over her choices. Even as she weaves the pieces of her heart back together, the past becomes more than a memory when a former foster brother reappears and Dani begins receiving threatening calls.


About the Author (from her website): 
I didn't always know that I wanted to be a writer. I grew up with the idea that my sister was the writer and I was the artist.

When I finally decided to start writing, I lacked confidence and deleted pretty much everything I wrote immediately.

After discovering an amazing online writer's workshop, I started writing in earnest. And thanks to the help from other writers I improved beyond what I ever imagined possible.

Songbird will be my first published novel through Little Prince Publishing, and I am now working on balancing my writing, marketing and life.

I live with my husband and daughter in beautiful Colorado.

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FTC Information: I received this book through Teen Book Scene for an honest review.  I have Amazon links on my review pages but I do not make any money from these because of NC laws.  I put them solely for people to check out the books on a retail site.