I absolutely loved this novel - a weirdly dark, amusing look at contemporary British life on the margins of acceptability. I found Lydia and Joyce to be compelling protagonists, and the central themes of nostalgia, relationship abuse, and feminism were brilliantly woven into the character's stories. Highly recommended.

Birding is a multilayered and reflective novel that focuses on two middle aged women, exploring the very different lives that have taken them to this point in time and location, in a run down town on the southern English coast, off season.

While Lydia has lived a life of apparent freedom and relative independence, after being a teen star in a 90s band, Joyce has had a locked-in life smothered by a manipulative, demanding mother.

Lydia is there to stay with her ex-bandmate Pandora, trying to recapture their old friendship while picking through her feelings after being overwhelmed when her ex, Henry, released a #metoo apology that sheds new light on their past relationship and forces her to face her past and the meaning of 'consent.'

There must be millions upon millions of middle-aged women who find themselves in a similar state today. You see, back then (Lydia is looking back on the 90s, but what about the 80s, 70s and 60s?), 'consent' wasn't a thing. 'Consent' was a term from the past: it was, mostly, what fathers used to give their daughters' suitors. Permission to marry. In the mid- to late 20th century, 'consent' was not something one thought about much. Back then, we thought about how cool we were (or weren't). We placed ourselves on a scale of coolness and defined our position there by the clothes we wore, the music we listened to, the friends we hung out with and the men we spent time with. It was 'cool' to be a bit wild and rebellious, daring, and attractive to [older] men. And when things went beyond our comfort zone, sometimes far, far beyond, we retreated, licked our wounds in private and blamed ourselves. Many, many girls and women found themselves like balloons on a string. We knew we didn't want to live the constrained lives of earlier generations of women. We found a sense of freedom and power within a discourse of feminism. We tried to feel that we were the ones holding our own strings, while actually being buffeted from one emotional/sexual experience to another, lacking the vocabulary to pin down and define what we truly wanted. Drawn to the images of freedom that surrounded us (from Woodstock and free love to David Bowie, punk, etc.), while still totally brainwashed by generations of insistence on the need to be polite and submissive.

Assault was [still] something that was never talked about. So girls and women who were assaulted didn't have the opportunity or the words to admit to it. Even in their own minds. Unable, at the deepest level, to distinguish between consent, ambivalence and resistance.

Of course, not all women were Lydias. And why were some women Lydias while some became Joyces? There are many different flavours of subjugation.

To get back to the story, Lydia finds herself suddenly facing an uprising of feelings hitherto repressed, as she questions her whole past. Joyce is at a different type of crossroads, slowly emerging from a stifling relationship with her abusive, controlling mother.

It's a fascinating contrast: one woman emerging from control to freedom, another struggling to build a sense of control out of a rootless life.

Birding is wonderfully constructed and beautifully written, and is asking so many of the right questions about submission, subjugation and what free self-expression could look like. Questions that we are only now starting to find the words for.

All this makes the novel sound ponderous. It's not. It's immersive and at times very funny. Some of the characters are horrible (Joyce's mother, oh god!) but all feel very real and true.

In many ways, it's a 5-star novel. I take it down to 4 stars as the whole storyline around Pandora's daughter Laurence didn't really work for me; While the social commentary blends lightly into the rest of the novel, this thread is more clumsy. Still, in the larger context of all this novel has to offer, it's a minor quibble.

The only good thing about this book is the cover, which I think is stunning and the synopsis that really gives you the vibes you want in the book, but the story itself is nothing like that.

I usually don’t give one star to a book where I read every page of it, but in this case I did, which just shows that I really want to get something from the book, but it didn’t deliver. It was very messy creative wise, there were some good ideas about characters, but everything else, such as the plot, the storyline and the writing style, were just off for me.

Set against the backdrop of a seaside town that time seems to have forgotten, Birding feels like a nostalgic memory box filled with sepia-toned Polaroids and trinkets. Ruane's vivid descriptions transport readers to a world where you can almost taste the sea salt and feel the sticks of rock in your hand. The novel is filled with humor and heartbreak, ultimately leaving readers with a sense of cosmic hope. Birding touches on various themes, including the Me Too movement, abuse, queerness, and self-love, always staying true to the core of two women, Lydia and Joyce, whose lives intersect.

This extraordinary novel follows twin storylines set in a slowly-gentrifying yet run-down seaside town that’s “not on the way to anywhere else”. It is almost winter: the tourists have gone, and only the locals are left for the darkest months of the year, clinging to the beaches and weathered buildings from the resort’s heyday. Lydia and Pandora were teen bandmates in the 90s who fully lived their time in the spotlight while young but decades on, their lives and luck have diverged considerably. Now a freelance writer, 48-year old Lydia is in the midst of a crisis and reaches out to Pan for the first time in years: she moves into an as-yet-unrestored part of Pan’s derelict seaside hotel, where Lydia begins to painstakingly pick over the events of her past, reviewing them in light of new information from her ex, Henry. His “me-too” inspired apology for a past transgression knocked Lydia sideways and shifted the entirety of her memories, altering their focus and “redrafting [her] understanding of almost every facet of her life”: now she is transfixed by the dawning realisation that consent rarely featured in her past: instead she politely accepted whatever it was that others wanted for her, often with damaging results. Pan’s teenage daughter Laurence – Lydia’s goddaughter – also turns up at the hotel, seeking reassurance about her own identity and choices, and the three women fall into a fragile coexistence at the edge of the world.

Elsewhere in the same town, middle-aged Joyce lives with her elderly mother Betty in breathtakingly unusual circumstances: Betty’s abusive complete control of her daughter means the two eat identically, dress in matching outfits, follow set routines which cannot be broken, burying the pain of their lost lifestyle and Joyce’s long-absent father: the very definition of faded glory. Joyce knows what questions to ask about their past to keep the mood calm and avoid Betty’s painful attacks about Joyce’s eating, or looks, or life choices, but her growing craving for freedom cannot be ignored: is there a future in which she could break out of the cage built for her?

Brilliantly descriptive, meditative, thought-provoking and nostalgic, this is a superb book which will transport you to the British coast and leave you pondering past and future choices – not to be missed.

I will surely review in a proper way as the style of writing and the storytelling are excellent.
As it's quite a hard time I found hard to rate and and review it in the best way as it's novel that force you to reflect in your life and somehow I felt it talked to me in a very intimate way
It's an excellent novel, a more extensive review will follow
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Birding is centered around Joyce and Lydia, two women who have both spent their lives in submission to others.

They live in the same small town, but except for one small moment have never met. While Lydia spent her early years in the limelight as a teen pop star, Joyce has not left her home. She never held a job, lives with and spends all her time with her mother. As she contemplates her future Lydia is thinking about escaping and Joyce examines her own life after a self-serving apology.

Although it took me a few days to finish Birding it was a very captivating and good read. I hope I'll see more people on bookstagram reading this book.

I love a dual timeline.
I knew I was going to love this.

Two stories, two women, the same town.

Lydia is an ex-popstar who moves in with her old band mate and old rivalries and bitterness and history occurs.

And Joyce lives with her Mum, with identify haircuts and outfits and a house full of dolls.

As the book went on, I found myself much more interested in Joyce’s story and not caring about Lydia’s. I wish there had been more Joyce.

I really liked the character of Lo but she felt towards the end too much like a stereotype to say something and I found it a bit too heavy handed.

But Joyce was so well-realised, I loved the details of her life with her mum. I also loved the realistic seaside-town-on-hard-times setting.

This was so fun.

this one is for the girlies with complicated mother-daughter relationships and men trauma so i feel catered to

an excruciating (positive) look into overbearing mothers, the lifelong ramifications of sexualisation & abuse at a young age alongside feeling generally lost as an adult

while i do wish there was more plot (as in i was waiting for some huge climactic event i don’t feel i got) i have to give rose ruane her flowers for writing one of the most unflinching & accurate accounts of what it’s like to emotionally deal with being assaulted when you can’t even admit to yourself that maybe ambivalence is not consent. it got genuinely difficult to read at points and i think that’s testimony to how accurate it is.

reading about joyce on the flip side was also excruciating because i really genuinely could not stand her mother for the majority of the book until i realised that a lot of her actions are just reactions to her own life when she was younger. i will say i didn’t enjoy the big “twist” with this half of the story and found it to be almost a cop-out.

would be super intrigued about future releases. thank you to netgalley & the publisher for the ARC!

What a strange, tantalizing creature of a book. By my own admittance it took me a little while to get into the rhythm of this work but once I found it I found myself devouring the text. The narrative is centered around two middle aged women, Joyce and Lydia, who have both spent their lives in submission ( and indeed in some ways subjugation) to others. There is something almost horror-esque to the story as it unfolds. The insidious way Joyce is forced to live as a mirror to her mother, the way that Lydia is pushed into examining her own life after a self-serving apology...which later looks almost like part of a publicity stunt and a deep invasion of her privacy...which of course she then goes on to commit herself.
The town itself reads like a character, providing an eerie and indeed at times disturbing backdrop to both past and present versions of these women's lives. The book is filled with subtle under-currents and clever coverage of topics such as toxic masculinity, indeed the toxic feminine (I'm looking at you Betty), what it means to age as a woman and indeed what it mean to try and give your life a meaning when you've not held the reigns before.
The writing itself is poetic and lyrical, occasionally reading like a fever dream (I'm thinking of the bird watcher's hut incident in particular) and I love all the quiet ways these women's lives are intersecting and the don't even know it. The characters are often, quite frankly ghastly but I think that was one of the reason's I couldn't look away. She captures human existence so well, in all its versions.
For me a very solid read, I deeply enjoyed the slow build of the book and how Ruane was able to put some many relationships under the micro-scope to see right to the heart of them. A very interesting and darkly funny read.

It’s the way this book is so TTPD coded omg. It goes in depth into both Lydia’s and Joyce’s loneliness and lack of meaning to their lives. At its core, this is a coming-of-age story of two middle aged women who are simply lost in their lives, trying to find who they are without the influence of others, and I ate it up. I think it was the perfect length and anything longer would’ve just dragged. I did expect something a little crazier for the climax (murder), especially considering how slow the rest of the book was, building up all until the end. You could truly feel the atmosphere of this small town, it was just SO clear in my head how the wind felt, what the buildings looked like, etc. Nothing happened and yet I was fascinated and couldn’t stop myself from reading it. 4.25⭐️

Absolutely adored this with my whole heart. The language is poetic, the setting beautifully drawn and the characters all so lovingly created. I thought it was wonderful.

I’m not sure what to make of this book. The writing is almost poetic in places but it feels like the author is trying too hard with her descriptions sometimes. The overall feeling I got was of bleakness and hopelessness and how damaged people were. The concept is a good one but I found the execution disappointing.

There is so much in this book. To start, the town itself is a character of its own. The first few pages described it so clearly. I knew exactly the kind of place it was.
The writing style was interesting, quite descriptive and often funny.
There are two main characters Lydia and Joyce. Their stories are told with a cast of others that fill in some of the gaps and help round them out.
There aren't many men in the book but one of the themes is around how men treat women. How the characters have been affected by that and how they are coming into their own in later life.
I thought this was a great read.

I think I'd like to read this book again straight away (and I would if I hadn't got tons of other things to read). I was feeling a bit let down by this book until the last quarter and then I realised I'd been reading it all wrong. It's not the first time I've had preconceptions and missed the whole point of a book. It probably won't be the last.

So the book follows two women - Joyce who is headed for an entire lifetime of subjugation under her mother's suffocating presence; and Lydia who is struggling to find her place in the world after a failed career in a band and a less than stellar job as a freelancer.

Joyce wants more out of life than existing in a pokey flat with her mother and Lydia, newly reunited with her best friend, Pan, and Pan's daughter, Lol, is trying to understand why the man who abused her gets to say sorry and walk away.

Two women whose unsatisfying lives intersect for one stunning moment. But what will come next?

As I said I read this book all wrong. I should have luxuriated in the slow build up of pressure instead of wondering when that one moment would arrive. Hence I'd like to read it again and soon. Rose Ruane writes characters very well and she captures the pathos and ennui of the situation and town very clearly.

There are difficult subjects to navigate but nothing feels sensational or overdone. Both women are clearly in need of some love and care and I felt sympathy for Joyce and Lydia but also for all the other characters whose lives weren't all they wanted them to be but were still hopeful.

Highly recommended. A gentle but effective novel.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Little, Brown for the advance review copy.

Birding is so superbly written with humour that is wickedly dark at times but with a raw and honest edge that probes around very bleak topics with the disbelief and almost bonhomie of characters losing their grip on what is going on for them.
Although both Lydia and Joyce live in the same, rundown, depressing seaside town they don't really meet, but both of them have lives that are troubling and this book follows events that bring revelations and life-altering realisations.
At times this is really quite harrowing to read as you bear witness to abuse, manipulation and conflict that is wincingly painful but you see things from various perspectives, and the insight always awards glimmers of home, of change and transformation.
I don't think I've read a book so compellingly accurate about complex and codependent mother -daughter relationships as this one, and the very difficult balance of being in a caring role and trying to also parent through trauma. It is a fantastic book.

DNF - I think this was the case of wrong reader; I ;love the cover art for this book & the synopsis sounded like my cup of the but, it turns out we weren't well paired.

There are glimpses of the book this could have been, of one I’d want to read. But for the most part, I was bored. Grey gardens meets Eleanor Oliphant, meh.

Possible spoilers


I enjoyed this one.
Two damaged women of similar ages, with completely different backgrounds, each trapped in their lives.
It felt very much two books for price of one, as the stories were so self contained.
I couldn't help but feel for stifled , trapped Joyce, because as much as I love to read about a toxic mother, you can imagine the reality!

There were some touching moments, mostly with Lol I felt.

Left me feeling a bit sad, and a bit hopeful. And a book that leaves you feeling anything is usually good.

I really enjoyed this book. I knew from the blurb it was definitely a book I would enjoy reading and connect with. Anything seasidey is right up my street