liralen's review against another edition
4.0
The word that comes to mind is saturated -- vibrant prose and complicated, messy characters. I loved [b:All Our Pretty Songs|16045120|All Our Pretty Songs (All Our Pretty Songs, #1)|Sarah McCarry|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1352781045s/16045120.jpg|19158383] (another word that comes to mind: greedy -- as in, I gobbled this up greedily), and this is the story of the mothers of the characters of that book...how they came to know each other and, in a sense, how they came to be.
Maia is an aspiring pianist, talented, driven, and isolated -- sometimes more pushed than driven. For all that she wants to succeed, and to give herself over to music, she hasn't found either herself or her place in music. Cass, meanwhile, lives on the streets; she is harder to define in part because she's not interested in being defined.
They wouldn't be an obvious match if this weren't YA fiction, but it works anyway. The journey they take is Maia's, mostly; she has more layers to shed and more to lose. But they both change, and make mistakes, and make defining choices. By the end of the book they're both different people, for better or for worse -- and there isn't a neat and tidy bow to tie everything up.
That's a very vague review, I know. I love the lushness of the writing and the knots of the characters. I complain about books becoming series when they'd work better as standalone stories, but this and All Our Pretty Songs do stand on their own, and...and I'm very much looking forward to the next book.
Maia is an aspiring pianist, talented, driven, and isolated -- sometimes more pushed than driven. For all that she wants to succeed, and to give herself over to music, she hasn't found either herself or her place in music. Cass, meanwhile, lives on the streets; she is harder to define in part because she's not interested in being defined.
They wouldn't be an obvious match if this weren't YA fiction, but it works anyway. The journey they take is Maia's, mostly; she has more layers to shed and more to lose. But they both change, and make mistakes, and make defining choices. By the end of the book they're both different people, for better or for worse -- and there isn't a neat and tidy bow to tie everything up.
That's a very vague review, I know. I love the lushness of the writing and the knots of the characters. I complain about books becoming series when they'd work better as standalone stories, but this and All Our Pretty Songs do stand on their own, and...and I'm very much looking forward to the next book.
alexaamarok's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.5
ewil6681's review against another edition
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
stenaros's review against another edition
2.0
I never could quite put my finger on what made me uncomfortable in this book. Both main characters were interesting, sympathetic and well written. The plot was solid, if nerve-wracking. I'm not sure, but maybe the woo-woo aspects didn't work for me?
Interestingly, my copy of the book included the first chapter of the continuation of the story and I responded quite well to the switch in narrators.
Also, I'm not reading this is a retelling of Persephone, which I did not pick up on at all.
Interestingly, my copy of the book included the first chapter of the continuation of the story and I responded quite well to the switch in narrators.
Also, I'm not reading this is a retelling of Persephone, which I did not pick up on at all.
readinggrrl's review against another edition
4.0
This book is actually a prequel to All Our Pretty Songs. Dirty Wings is about the parents of Aurora and the narrator of the first book.
Maia is a gifted piano player who lives a sheltered life until she meets Cass, a street girl who teaches her how to speak her mind and steal what she needs to live. Switching back and forth between "then" and "now" McCarry takes you from when Cass and Maia first meet to after they have run away together.
It was difficult to wrap my brain around this sheltered young talented girl being Aurora's mother, the tripped out junkie from All Our Pretty Songs, but you start to see how she got to that place and why Cass knew she needed to protect her daughter and why she tried to protect Aurora.
The same skeleton man from book 1 haunts Maia and her musician boyfriend that haunted Aurora in All Our Pretty Songs, only this time Cass tries to save her friend instead of her daughter.
McCarry's descriptions are still poetic, haunting and beautiful and Renata Friedman's narration is hypnotizing. This book is a beautiful addition to this trilogy but I was left a little stumped by the ending. I realize that after reading the first book that we have an idea of how their lives turned out but this one just sort of ended leaving me a bit lost.
Maia is a gifted piano player who lives a sheltered life until she meets Cass, a street girl who teaches her how to speak her mind and steal what she needs to live. Switching back and forth between "then" and "now" McCarry takes you from when Cass and Maia first meet to after they have run away together.
It was difficult to wrap my brain around this sheltered young talented girl being Aurora's mother, the tripped out junkie from All Our Pretty Songs, but you start to see how she got to that place and why Cass knew she needed to protect her daughter and why she tried to protect Aurora.
The same skeleton man from book 1 haunts Maia and her musician boyfriend that haunted Aurora in All Our Pretty Songs, only this time Cass tries to save her friend instead of her daughter.
McCarry's descriptions are still poetic, haunting and beautiful and Renata Friedman's narration is hypnotizing. This book is a beautiful addition to this trilogy but I was left a little stumped by the ending. I realize that after reading the first book that we have an idea of how their lives turned out but this one just sort of ended leaving me a bit lost.
heykellyjensen's review against another edition
4.0
This answered a lot of questions that I didn't know I had with All Our Pretty Songs and I mean that in a really good way.
Cass and Maia are incredible girls, rich and complex, and their friendship is so fascinating and dynamic and painful and REAL.
You can totally read this as a standalone, though it'll make you want to check out the first book (or revisit it). Excellent literary YA.
Full review here: http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/07/dirty-wings-by-sarah-mccarry.html
Cass and Maia are incredible girls, rich and complex, and their friendship is so fascinating and dynamic and painful and REAL.
You can totally read this as a standalone, though it'll make you want to check out the first book (or revisit it). Excellent literary YA.
Full review here: http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/07/dirty-wings-by-sarah-mccarry.html
declaired's review against another edition
5.0
well, this is one of the meaner things I've done to myself recently.
this book is perfect. at least 80% of that statement is because of how well-written the book is, how real the characters are, and how well it bounced off of the first book in terms of telling a prequel story while still being its own journey.
and 30% is how much I cried and overly related to Cass, who has a lot of feelings I am perfectly in tune with, and it means a lot for me to see that. I want to make everyone read this book because I want to talk about it, and at the same time I want no one to read this book because some of it feels like you could be reading my diary (only much better written)
this was not, perhaps, my greatest move on a "cheer up and take a mental health alone-time evening, ellen" but goddamn it was good.
--
2018 reread
I've tried to reread this book a couple of times since 2015, because it's perfect, but I'm usually stopped a bit because there is only so much self-examination that is healthy in the wake of two girls running away to California to find themselves/each other/other terrible things. I love Cass and Maia so much; I love how unashamedly complicated they are in what they mean to each other. I love the writing, the focus of the novel, which just echoes so true.
"I thought running away would fix it," Maia whispers.
"Running away doesn't fix anything," Cass says. "But it makes you harder to find."
and
"It's a release, but it's not the solution to any riddle. If she knew what she wanted, if she could put a name to it, would that set her free?"
this book is perfect. at least 80% of that statement is because of how well-written the book is, how real the characters are, and how well it bounced off of the first book in terms of telling a prequel story while still being its own journey.
and 30% is how much I cried and overly related to Cass, who has a lot of feelings I am perfectly in tune with, and it means a lot for me to see that. I want to make everyone read this book because I want to talk about it, and at the same time I want no one to read this book because some of it feels like you could be reading my diary (only much better written)
this was not, perhaps, my greatest move on a "cheer up and take a mental health alone-time evening, ellen" but goddamn it was good.
--
2018 reread
I've tried to reread this book a couple of times since 2015, because it's perfect, but I'm usually stopped a bit because there is only so much self-examination that is healthy in the wake of two girls running away to California to find themselves/each other/other terrible things. I love Cass and Maia so much; I love how unashamedly complicated they are in what they mean to each other. I love the writing, the focus of the novel, which just echoes so true.
"I thought running away would fix it," Maia whispers.
"Running away doesn't fix anything," Cass says. "But it makes you harder to find."
and
"It's a release, but it's not the solution to any riddle. If she knew what she wanted, if she could put a name to it, would that set her free?"
onesmartcupcake's review against another edition
5.0
GORGEOUS. Beautiful lyrical language, well drawn characters, and incredibly thoughtful & thought-provoking explorations of sexuality, gender, art, and human relationships. Others have written much more eloquently about the excellence of Sarah McCarry's books (including The Book Smugglers in a fairly recent edition of their Kirkus column) so I'll just say that this genre-bending novel is one of my favorites of 2014. I would recommend it to fans of both fantasy and contemporary realistic fiction--and especially to readers with an interest in stories that explore the experiences of teenage girls with complexity and authenticity.
heatherd's review
3.0
I enjoyed this book a lot but felt that there were things I might have been missing about it. It’s a retelling of the Persephone myth, which I am embarrassed to admit that I’m not familiar with. In addition, it’s the second book in a series, and I hadn’t read the first book. Even so, I really liked this story and was inspired by the courage shown by both of these girls. I love reading about friendship between girls and women, especially when it’s not based upon their relationship to a boy (which, in this case, it wasn’t until Jason came into the picture), and it’s something extra to see that friendship have the potential to blossom into something more. I would definitely read more from McCarry – her writing is gorgeous and her characters are truly complex. I’m not certain I grasped everything this story was trying to show me, but I enjoyed it anyway.