Melody Murray's Books

When I was a teen reader, it seemed like every other book was about The Parents' Divorce. These days it seems like every other book is about some kid On The Spectrum. A lot of them are heavy-handed and nearly plotless. Mockingbird, on the other hand, is a rare and wonderful novel. It is steeped in sadness, infused with grief in a way I've never encountered. Utterly believable and heartbreaking, it just misses being claustrophobic in the way that the finest chocolate ice cream just misses being cloying. The characters are all achingly real and broken in one way or another by the central tragedy of the book. Caitlin, the protagonist, is trying to very hard to make some sense of everything, and it's her journey, her work, that we see the most of. The sense of having to work at life is so beautifully communicated I almost understood.Too sad for me to give it five stars, but certainly well-written enough to deserve them. I won't re-read it, I don't think, because it is so sad. Is that a spoiler? I'll click the box just in case.