Birdy is a complex, compelling creation by an author who has a wonderful feel for the untidiness of life -- for its haphazard kindnesses, its casual cruelties, its sometimes baffling conventions and codes. A terrific debut.--Sarah Waters, award-winning author of The Paying Guest

Birdy Flynn carries secrets.There is the secret of Birdy's dead grandmother's cat. How the boys tortured it and Birdy had to drown it in the river to stop it from suffer-ing. There's the secret of Mrs. Cope, the teacher who touched Birdy. The secret of the gypsy girl at school who Birdy likes. But she can't tell anyone about any of these secrets. Because Birdy's other secret is that while she fights as good as the boys, she is a girl, and she doesn't always feel like a girlis supposed to. So Birdy holds on to her secrets and tries to become what others want, even it if means losing herself.BIRDY FLYNN is a beautifully nuanced and deeply felt portrayal of a girl growing up amid an imperfect family, and an imperfect world, to become the person she was meant to be.