Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets

Roskos, Evan. Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.

James Whitman is depressed. His sister has been kicked out of school and out of the house, so he is left to deal with his abusive parents by himself.  He is obsessed with Walt Whitman and often imagines himself talking to a pigeon who is his therapist (since he can't afford a real one).  He gets a job so he can be away from the house more often, and he tries to uncover what really happened the day his sister was kicked out of school.

This book has been compared to The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and I can definitely see the comparison. This book seems very random, probably because the reader spends the entire time in the head space of a teenage boy. His obsession with Walt Whitman is a bit weird, to be sure, but it felt like I barely knew this character by the time I finished the book, and I certainly didn't sympathize with him. I didn't enjoy Wallflower much, so that might explain why this book didn't speak to me, either.

Recommended for: teens
Red Flags: teen violence, mentions of cutting, alcohol use
Overall Rating: 3/5 stars