Love is for the Birds

Read 3/13/10 - 3/16/10
3 Stars - Recommended to readers familiar with genre/author
Pgs:208

Thanks to the incredibly awesome people over at Harper Perennial for forwarding me The Bird Room for review.

It was a quickly paced, bizarre story about an unemployed self conscious young man named Will, who finally finds love with Alice, only to have his heart broken because he can't leave well enough alone.

Told from Will's point of view, we are plunged head first into his dark and twisted mind. We are cringing at the unchecked jealousy over his best friend - also named Will. We are watching as he pushes Alice away from him and straight into the other Will's arms. We are shaking our heads as he dives into the deep end of Internet porn, through which he discovers Helen - the "actress" with an invisible "sister".

While it was easy to read, it was somewhat confusing. We are thrown into the story at the halfway mark and flip-flop between the present and the past. There were times when I was reading a chapter and could not be quite sure if I was in the current moment or a past moment.

The painfully damaged characters make this novel enjoyable. You can find bits and pieces of yourself in just about all of them, if you are honest with yourself! Some of Will's neuroses made me laugh - There was a moment when Will and his girlfriend are having dinner with his best friend Will, and he drives himself crazy imagining them touching their feet together under the table. He follows his girlfriend after work because he is sure she is visiting her ex-boyfriend behind his back....

Not something I would recommend to everyone. At times dark, funny in parts, and heavily layered in lust and sex and pornography.