Goodbye Birdie Greenwing by Ericka Waller

 

Great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave and impossible to forget ...

Birdie Greenwing has been at a loose end ever since her beloved twin sister and husband passed away. Too proud and stubborn to admit she is lonely, Birdie’s world has shrunk. But then some new neighbours move in to the house next door.

Jane has come to Brighton for a fresh start, away from her ferociously protective mother Min. While Jane finds it hard to stand up for herself, her daughter Frankie has no problem telling people what she does and doesn’t want. Ada Kowalski has come to England to follow her dreams, but her new life is harder than she expected.

When a series of incidents brings their lives crashing together, the three find that there is always more to a person than meets the eye …

Goodbye Birdie Greenwing follows a cast of characters who are all neighbours with quirky personality traits who all have one thing in common and that is loneliness. As their lives begin to weave a web between them all a friendship is formed from helping those in need and begins to slowly flourish giving them all support and kindness they need so desperately.

Along with Birdie we also meet Jane and her daughter Frankie who actually manages to bring a little humour to the storyline with her matter of fact ways although at times the difficulties she faces as a child who is misunderstood pulled at my heart strings. Then we also have Ada who is a doctor who has given up her life back home in Poland to come to England to help those that will not affect her heart or so she believed but now has made her world so isolated and small when inside we can see she has such a big heart that is bursting to come out.

There are so many real life struggles touched upon in this book and a lot of them have caused so much isolation to our characters and shows the importance of talking about our worries, problems and situations rather than keeping secrets because they all eat away at you in the end and cause more harm than good.

Although from the title of this book we already are aware of the likely outcome of this book, I know some of you who read my book reviews do not like a tear jerker but I personally found this book touching and poignant rather than tear jerking with the ending kind of feeling bittersweet having got to know Birdie and those she misses so dearly.

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting this colourful quirky cast of characters and watching them turn their lives around showing how brighter and more enjoyable life is when you let a few people in.