EricaO

I think the title made me believe there would be magic in this book, something to do with birds. And that is why you don't assume content based on cover.

I enjoyed about half of this story. I liked little Milly and little Twiss, I liked that one summer their asthmatic, insecure, and bullying cousin Bette (is that her name? Bed? Bet? I couldn't tell with the smug-cat-voiced reader)(who also made all the women sound sleepy or stoned, by the way) came to visit while there was also a problem between Milly and Twiss' parents.
I assume this took place sometime after World War II? There seems to be some rationing going on but cars are prevalent so I didn't think this was during the Great Depression. Maybe I was told the timeframes - both the girls as girls and the girls as old women - and just didn't catch it. At any rate, Milly and Twiss are used to doing without, though their France-traipsing mother is not and the fact that she must make do with whatever paycheck is left unsquandered by her golfing husband pisses her right off. So, I felt we were off to a good start with lots of things going on - pride and poverty, first love, disruptive visiting relatives, growing up and finding your parents are human, summertime adventures, small towns, all that fun stuff.

I liked Bette/Bed/Bet best because I understood why she was the way she was, why she hated Milly, why she loved Twiss, why she made the decisions she did, why she was so desperate and how that shaped her being. I understood Twiss and Milly, not so much because all their complex parts created a whole, but more because they are characters with whom readers are already familiar. You can see Tom Sawyer and Laura Ingalls Wilder and Pippi Longstocking in Twiss while there are remnants of every good girl you can think of from favorite childhood stories in Milly. They're respins of the pre-made and there's a comfort in that, in picking up new versions of characters you already like. I was good to go with the girls.
What I didn't quite understand was the parent's relationship. I got that she came from privilege and he came from the opposite; that they married for love and she was kind-of-disowned by her family; that they didn't find their fairy-tale happily ever after and that she was especially discontented as a result. What I wasn't clear on was the nature of their rift. Was there philandering going on while dad was still Golf Man? It sounded that way what with the private lesson with the young woman and then the resulting accident with the car in the river. But then it couldn't have been too big if it was so easy to temporarily repair with a simple note saying "I'd love to go to the fair with you!" and then: also we shall ride airplanes and will be back in love by the end of the day!

When the big turning point came, I lost all hope. It was if the story went from Girls Grow Up to Victorian Women Do Their Duty At All Personal Cost. It seemed unrealistic that Twiss would just give up everything to stay home for the rest of her life to keep Milly the Martyr company, virgin spinsters until death do they part. In fact, I don't think half the people in town would have allowed that, especially since they could have easily petitioned the state for guardianship - that was glossed over like crazy - and made sure the girls went to college or traveled Europe or did whatever accomplished young ladies of the town should have been doing. It seemed out of place and maudlin to let two characters give all up for the greater good and simply live together, fixing birds, growing old and dusty, and allowing themselves to become crazy lady legends down in the town If I wanted to read about girls sacrificing everything for the good of their family/society/what have you, I'd go read some Gothic romance novel where everyone ends up miserable in the end and those have never appealed to me; similarly, this ending also did not appeal to me.

To sum up: I though it started out strong and fun and with lot of potential but it ended in a way that was just not to my taste.