Teenage burdens, teenage eurekas
Like a Bird
by Becky Citra
Toronto: Second Story Press, 2025
$15.95 / 9781772604177
Reviewed by Alison Acheson
*
“I wander between the young adult and the adult shelves.” This brief quote from Becky Citra’s latest offering, Like a Bird, captures both protagonist and reader, too. The line between being a young person and being an adult, which is not a line at all, can be a challenge to capture in a story on paper. In life, it’s tough enough! In fiction, we can try to make sense of it. Sit in on a writing workshop, though, and you might hear the words: “I don’t believe this character would do that!”
But when we’re growing up and trying on possibly ways to be and ideas and values, when we’re learning about who we are, sometimes we do things that are, yes, unbelievable. We surprise ourselves even.
Rachel (of the earlier and well-received YA novel, Rachel Bird) is realistic in this story: one minute she’s filled with grownup wisdom and the next she’d cutting school—though I’m with her on this! She waxes on about being cautious… then takes a drive with no more than an L license. (Maybe that’s okay on rural roads?) Such dichotomies appear throughout the story, and the character is ultimately thoroughly believable—as is her relationship with her younger sister, and her grandparents.
The setting is BC’s Cariboo country. As we’ve lived through a number of fiery summers now in this province, they are taking to be a larger role in our literature. It’s not easy to see in the pages of a story, but that’s our reality and, as such, has a role in stories for young people.
In Like a Bird, one thread central to growing up is that of Rachel’s relationship with her boyfriend, Cody. Instead of the usual linear trajectory, this burgeoning shared sexuality in many ways mirrors the unpredictability of a fire—a wind can make it progress; another wind can push it back, choke it off.
With Cody, Rachel learns how to make decisions. She sounds the depths of her guts for what is right and what is not right for her. That maturing is a significant piece in the story. The inherent “message”—using the word loosely; in the novel, that is not how it comes across!—is that, if we move forward, it’s okay to back off, change it up, take a break. Do what feels right and best for one’s self, even as Rachel is mindful of Cody, too.
Similarly, there’s a thread of the grandmother, Margaret, needing a break and the family working with her decision. Citra makes the situation very real. Altogether, these explorations of what it is to be female, both young and ageing, are solid studies in lived-feminism. We can be in control of our lives, even as some—so many—aspects feel to be anything but in our control. I think my younger self, whether aware of it or not, would have been receptive to such ideas. We can discuss “in theory,” but to see human characters make decisions and the interplay that follows between other family members, is thought-provoking. Books for the young allow for life-rehearsal, and fruitful pondering.
Towards the end, it falls to Rachel to persuade her grandfather to leave his beloved home of a lifetime, even with an evacuation order in place. At one point, he threatens a police officer with his hunting rifle. Grandfather is reminded that this is a serious action… but no action is taken. This may be life in Cariboo country. Certainly, so much of the setting reads as real to me, from the bit of time I’ve spent in that part of the province. It’s surely a strength of Citra’s, who is a long-term resident of the region.
I also enjoyed the descriptions of the grandmother’s vegetable gardening, and her instructions to Rachel on how to take care of the various plants. (And, of course the reality of this veg-care as summer goes on, heat is a reality, and fire threatens!)
The number of threads that are well-woven throughout are impressive: from being a bookworm who chooses her set of library books using a word-of-the-week (“Blue,” “Storm”), to the flea-bitten ginger feline stray, to the desire to go to Paris, and many more including, of course, the looming danger of fire. Citra vividly captures contemporary life for young people. The fact that it’s rural life makes little difference really: urban, suburban, or rural, our existence now is complicated.
Of note, too: as a parent whose teenaged children experienced the loss of a parent, it resonated with me personally how Rachel and her sister continue to live with its gradual unfolding. The earlier book, Rachel Bird, focussed more closely on the actual loss, but the journey continues even as Like a Bird can truly stand alone. This emotional content rings true as the sisters continue to navigate a world without their mother, and the older Rachel begins to see the reality of facing ageing and increasingly vulnerable seniors.
Yet there is a point at which, even with her knowledge of human loss, Rachel shares some thoughtless words with a friend. Yes, she has flaws. And she develops understanding of others and of self, of self-forgiveness, too, and compassion.
At times, particularly deeply into the pages, the story-telling broke into shorter and shorter bits, marked off with symbols (did you know these are called “dingbats”? Seriously…) rather than smoothly transitioning, or simple unindented breaks/spaces. Perhaps there was an editorial sense that the increasingly shorter breaks quickened the pace, but the flow broke often.
Another quibble: the temperature of the weather was given in Fahrenheit which seemed odd when it was so obviously set in Canada, even though in the closing author’s note temperature was noted in Celsius. Mine was a reviewer’s copy though; perhaps this will change.
Let’s close with Rachel’s observation of her grandfather, and what he’ll do for her little sister. She knows he’d do the same for her. Love is the constant in this story: “Screw the arthritis. He’ll build a mountain for Jane. He’ll build her a whole mountain range… He’ll build her a Mount Everest.”
*
Alison Acheson is the author of almost a dozen books for all ages, with the most recent being a memoir of caregiving: Dance Me to the End: Ten Months and Ten Days with ALS (TouchWood, 2019). She writes a newsletter on Substack, The Unschool for Writers, and lives on the East Side of Vancouver. [Editor’s note: Alison Acheson has also reviewed books by Paul Yee, Leslie Gentile, Caroline Lavoie, Janice Lynn Mather, Li Charmaine Anne, Linda Demeulemeester, Hanako Masutani, Julie Lawson, George M. Johnson, Janice Lynn Mather, Jacqueline Firkins, Barbara Nickel, and Caroline Adderson for BCR; and Dance Me to the End was reviewed by Lee Reid.]
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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