Engrossing and not dated. ( )

Dysfunctional family saga that was oddly disconcerting, Bawden packs a punch. ( )

The drugs...why did he take them, that's the point! We must have failed him terribly...'
By sally tarbox on 25 Dec. 2013
Format: Paperback
I adored Nina Bawden's books as a child; this is her first adult work I've read.
It tells the story of Toby, child of middle-class academic parents, and always a little strange. Now aged 18, he's been expelled for his drug taking and long hair, leaving his family unsure how to proceed. From his little sister Lucy who adores him (Nina Bawden succeeds wonderfully in her depiction of the child: her resentment at no longer being noticed in light of the other disaster); his mother, who refuses to accept that her son doesn't want to go on to university; the relationships with friends and extended family...
I liked the author's style of having different 'voices' incorporated in the novel: sections written 'by' Lucy, the mother, the grandmother, expressing their feelings, thoughts, memories. I couldn't bear the pretentious, patronising parents. This was a well-written novel but I didn't massively enjoy it. ( )

Apparently Toby is a troubled teen (I think somewhere in the book it says he's 19, but then why is he getting kicked out of school at that old age?). His parents, Maggie and Charlie, don't really know what to do with him, but they get all sorts of comments and suggestions from their friends and family. This short novel is told from a variety of different character's points of view, but we never hear from Toby himself.

This novel started out very strong, but then fizzled into I don't know what. There are some well written and interesting bits, but overall it seemed rather pointless. Everyone is worried about Toby, but I couldn't see him actually doing anything extreme. I know lots of people who were asked to leave school and who smoked pot but still went on to become tax paying law abiding citizens with jobs and mortgages and children. And unlike Toby, none of them ended up in the psych ward of a hospital being treated for suspected schizophrenia that had been brought on by experimentation with marijuana and LSD.

In 2008, the people at the Booker Prize came up with an award called the Lost Booker so that they could honour some books published in 1970 that had missed out due to a rule change at that time. The Birds on the Trees was one of those Lost Booker nominees. I can't understand why, as I think it's dated, and not in a good Jane Austen-Virginia Woolf sort of way. ( )