A young man tries to overcome his anxiety while navigating adolescence. This story begins with a young man named James Whitman, no relation to the famous poet, waking up and announcing to the reader that he has learned to celebrate his life and everything that life brings. He tells how he greets every morning with a barbaric "yawp", He heavily invokes his namesake poet, Walt Whitman as he begins this day and explains how this approach to life is helping him overcome his anxiety attacks. James then spends a good amount of time detailing his attempts at poetry which has been prescribed by his imaginary psychiatrist, Dr. Bird, who is, in fact, a talking bird. In reality, this bird appears more or less as James' conscience effort to improve himself in the face of adversity since he is constantly caught in between his love for life and his hatred for his current family situation. The bulk of the story takes place in his high school over the course of two weeks. As he goes into his high school classes, he is a sophomore, James comes across many potential situations, including a chance to write for the school paper, that are hampered by his anxiety. As the story progresses, he begins to become attracted to one of the girls in the school paper club, named Rebecca, but ends up being friends with her rather than pursuing a romantic relationship. Then during one of his more severe anxiety attacks, James recounts the time when his family disowned his sister and literally threw her our on the lawn for being rebellious. His mother, also called the Banshee, is shown to be one of the most heartless characters in the book as she fails to sympathize with her daughters troubles, which are not clearly outlined until much later in the book, and expresses no interest in her son's life at all. Many of the problems in the novel stem from James's loss of his sister since she has been kicked out of the house, and thus, his life. She was apparently expelled for throwing a computer at a teacher, but this fails to be substantiated by anyone other than the teacher. While James is eventually able to prove her innocence, it does nothing to reconcile his family in the way he thought that it would. In the end, James is left with some more communication from his sister via email and phone calls, but is not able to meaningfully reunite with her in person. He continues to use poetry as a coping mechanism and is able to reconcile his anxiety with his conscience to prove that he no longer needs Dr. Bird, and that he will become a strong individual for having survived the difficult times.
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Best part of story, including ending:
This novel was a wonderful YA Fiction book because it eschewed the all-too-common happy ending, and instead shows a character with potential rather than a complete grasp of their circumstances.
Best scene in story:
One of my favorite scenes in the book was the moment when James finds out that his sister did not throw a computer at the teacher and he has one of his few actual outbursts in the novel.
Opinion about the main character:
I liked that James was such an unusual but empathetic character. He has so many quirks that make him interesting and flawed, and to see the growth of this type of character is much more interesting than those who end up perfectly happy and whole.
