When Will meets Alice, he can’t believe his luck. She’s smart, sexy and, much to Will’s surprise, in love with him.

Alice brings meaning to his urban existence. But true love never came easy and soon devotion leads Will to something darker.

The Bird Room is a candid, funny and joyous portrait of love and desire in the modern age.

– Publishers Blurb

This is not a book I would normally pick up off the shelves so I’m thankful to the publisher, Canongate and the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program for sending it to me.

Unfortunately I didn’t really enjoy it.

Whilst at times it is funny, but ultimately reading it is a fairly cold experience. Most of the characters are not particularly likeable or easy to care for and for someone like myself, who gets the best from a novel, when I love the characters I’m reading about, it’s always difficult connect with these ‘difficult’ characters.

Still, as I said earlier, there are moments, when the characters and the situations they get themselves in are quite funny, and the writing is sharp and easy to read.

There’s also a non-linear structure to the novel, which jumps about in time and storylines occasionally and I did think that this worked well and suited the story, using the two main plot-lines to contrast and reflect on each other, whilst never quite showing you the full picture.

For those that like to avoid such things, there’s a fair bit of sex going on in the book, but none of it particular titillating or sexy, for the most part there’s an uncomfortableness about it – for both the reader and the participants.

If you enjoy stylish explorations of obsession and dysfunctional relationships, and have less of a need to like your characters than I do, you’ll definitely get an awful lot more from this obviously cleverly written novel than I was able to.

Verdict: Decent – but not for me.

My copy of The Bird Room by Chris Killen, was provided to me, for free, as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

Buy: The Bird Room from The Book Depository