Lover Birds

Darci’s Review 

Lover Birds is a beautiful sapphic romance following the character of Elouise (Lou), a 17-year-old girl with ADHD trying focus on her final years of school. Leanne Egan, a neurodiverse and queer person themself, has created a novel of brilliant proportions that is insightful and truthful to the realities of neurodiversity and queerness, and the intersectionality of these identities with adolescence. 

In the first week of lower Sixth form, the equivalent of Australian Year 11, Lou becomes disgruntled at the arrival of Isabel, a rich and pretty  Londoner, into her Scouse school. When her close friend group adopts Isabel as their own, Lou decides to try to show some courtesy, but she soon finds they cannot help but butt heads at every conversation. Their rivalry soon blossoms into something more, and opens up the exploration of identity Lou had been avoiding ever since her ADHD diagnosis. 

Exploring the inner life of not only a teenage girl, but the mind of an ADHD-er, Egan convincingly represents the lives of young adult girls and non-binary people in the 21st century. Their characterisation was brilliant, with the relationships fostered between the main friend group, Mom and Lou, and Lou and her teacher feeling so authentic. As a young woman with ADHD, it was so refreshing for me to read a story where the thoughts and feelings of the main character felt so much like my own. A story that shows you are never alone, and that it does not make you weak to accept the help you need.
 
Publisher’s Review 

With an irresistible enemies-to-lovers romance, and perfect for fans of Alice Oseman and Becky Albertalli, Lover Birds is a beautifully-written, inclusive and heart-pounding romance.

When Isabel Williams moves to Liverpool, she criticises seemingly everything in Eloise Byrne’s life – her city, her accent, her trademark boldness – so if, when she catches Isabel staring, Eloise feels her pulse race, it must be because they hate each other. It surely couldn’t be for any other reason, could it? Eloise needs to get her ADHD under control in time for A-Levels, but when she meets Isabel, school becomes the least of her concerns. What begins as outright contempt turns into an oddly satisfactory rivalry, but for their rivalry to shift further into romance, their relationship must withstand Isabel's classism, Eloise’s distrust, and whatever secrets their friends are hiding from them.

With a wonderful cast of characters, an irresistible romance, and an incredibly moving and powerful portrayal of ADHD, Lover Birds is an unmissable debut from an extraordinary new voice in YA fiction.