Birds and Unbecoming

The Bird's Nest by Shirley Jackson is an in-depth exploration of a complex mental illness, largely from a female viewpoint. It was likely groundbreaking in the 1950s, but a modern lens shows the doctor to be wildly unprofessional, and the presentation of the illness to perhaps not be particularly accurate. It's also pretty circular in its narrative, with a lot of repetition and very little in the way of sympathetic behaviour from any of the characters.


The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is the start of a YA paranormal series about a girl who may or may not have powers relating to predicting other people's deaths. It probably wasn't a sensible choice for me - it freaked me out pretty early on and I decided I wasn't interested enough in the story to want to carry on with it.