08-18-2026, 03:05 PM
Whidbey by T Kira Madden
Okay, I could have given this a higher rating for the writing but this book is bleak. The author even gives a subject matter warning to scare you off. And also I kept thinking this was reference to Dracula as in Whitby, but not. On multiple occasions I wanted to stop reading because this book was not my thing.
Birdie is a survivor of childhood sexual. Calvin is her abuser. Mary Beth is Calvin's mother. Linzie King was also abused by Calvin and wrote a book about it. The book starts with everyone's story about Calvin and how the abuse affected them. Basically, Birdie runs away to Whidbey island when the book by Linzie King comes out about Linzie's experience with SA and it has a fictionalized version of Birdie in there. But this is a murder mystery so Calvin is murdered and then we have to see how that affects everyone. For most of the book, the narrators switch to give different view points of everyone's simply tragic lives. But then the author remembers about the mystery and starts talking directly to the reader about how the mystery is going and who the main suspects should be, tossing out red herrings and then saying why they are red herrings. Along the way we get more tragedy as more of Calvin's victims appear. And that there are more abusers out there. All bad.
Glad I'm done. Not sure I'm glad if I read that but it does show abuse in great detail, mostly mental.
Okay, I could have given this a higher rating for the writing but this book is bleak. The author even gives a subject matter warning to scare you off. And also I kept thinking this was reference to Dracula as in Whitby, but not. On multiple occasions I wanted to stop reading because this book was not my thing.
Birdie is a survivor of childhood sexual. Calvin is her abuser. Mary Beth is Calvin's mother. Linzie King was also abused by Calvin and wrote a book about it. The book starts with everyone's story about Calvin and how the abuse affected them. Basically, Birdie runs away to Whidbey island when the book by Linzie King comes out about Linzie's experience with SA and it has a fictionalized version of Birdie in there. But this is a murder mystery so Calvin is murdered and then we have to see how that affects everyone. For most of the book, the narrators switch to give different view points of everyone's simply tragic lives. But then the author remembers about the mystery and starts talking directly to the reader about how the mystery is going and who the main suspects should be, tossing out red herrings and then saying why they are red herrings. Along the way we get more tragedy as more of Calvin's victims appear. And that there are more abusers out there. All bad.
Glad I'm done. Not sure I'm glad if I read that but it does show abuse in great detail, mostly mental.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm