All the Birds in the Sky

I wanted to love this book but I kinda fell short right at the end. However, the two protagonists: Patricia and Lawrence are beautifully written.

The book is split over 3 era's of our characters' lives. Firstly when they're young children where the world is huge and wonderous. Patricia in particular has her first adventure very early in the book, and in part I wondered if this was entirely in a child's imagination rather than happening to her.

The next era in the book Patricia and Lawrence are at (what I'd consider ‘middle school'), and frankly it's horrible. They're bullied and targeted across the board. I found this part of the book the hardest hitting, and probably closer to the reality I know and it made me sad for the characters. I also felt like there was no real growth from this period of the book and they were simply tortured for being different and that wasn't addressed (or I missed it).

Then the last era of the book the characters are young adults, Patricia a witch with more control over her powers (and yes, it seems that it wasn't her imagination back when she was a child), and Lawrence a full super nerd building a machine to save humanity.

The story feels like it accelerates in momentum, complexity and consequence as it progresses. It reads really well, and the sci-fi aspects are fun, complex and draw some interesting moral questions.

Except for me, the end just...kinda happened. I was following the story along, the world in the book was going to hell, level 10 dystopia stuff, and then all of a sudden the protagonists left alone, Patricia is following a pigeon to a tree, they have a weird conversation, she vaguely answers a question and then Patricia and Lawrence walk off together into the sunset (sort of) with a sense of hope and everything will be okay for them.

Yet the world is still collapsing (mother nature trying to course correct), witches (and wizards?) are blasting people into unknown realms, and intend to unleash The Unravelling (which we meet once and it's a horror show), and the scientists are pissed and building mega machines to blow away the witches. So that's all still happening and yet Patricia and Lawrence seem to be okay.

I was left feeling like I missed something crucial at the end of the book, because I felt like the characters were doom, but didn't realise it, and the world was going to die even though both Patricia and Lawrence intended to save it. So...yeah, I'm not sure.

I loved the characters, and the writing was great and really original, and quite biting at times. But the more I thought about the end of the story, the more confused I felt.