Sugar Birds is a moving coming of age novel. Ten year old Aggie is on the run after she accidentally sets fire to her home. She hides out in the surrounding forest surviving only by using all that her father taught her about nature. Sixteen year old Cilia has been left with her grandmother Mender while her father is away on a job. The chapters alternate between the two girls as we learn about their fears and family. This is a suspenseful story about survival and overcoming hardships, while learning to accept what life has to offer. Sugar Birds is a page turner and hard to put down until the very last sentence is read. Thanks to the author Cheryl Grey Bostrom, publisher She Writes Press and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book for an honest review.

The Healing Forest

A story of young people growing up and earning their wings. Young people often have very real conflicts and sometimes deal with them in hurtful and destructive ways. This is especially so if they feel abandoned by one parent or another. Most times they can be become wonderful adults with the help of a good family and friends network like Aggie and Celia. Once in a while one is lost in despair and abandonment to the point of no return and is lost like Cabot.

The story is set in a beautiful woodlands setting in Washington State. Celia's grandmother and Aggie's brother are both into birds. Celia helps her grandmother rehabilitate them when she visits. When her father takes a job in Brazil and her mother leaves for a job somewhere else she must spend the summer unwillingly with her grandmother. The choices she makes and the friends she meets are both a part of her growing and learning. When Aggie's house burns down and she goes missing Celia is determined to find her.

This was a very interesting story about young people, the wilderness, and birds. I really enjoyed reading this book and I really enjoyed the characters, well maybe not Cabot, but there has to be a bad guy in the mix. I enjoyed all that I learned about birds and about the forest. I especially enjoyed Aggie, what a resourceful girl.

This would be a wonderful book for Adults and Young Adults both to read. It so much focuses on the family network and how they help a young person. I would definitely recommend this book.

Thanks to Cheryl Grey Bostrom, She Writes Press and Netgalley for allowing me to read a copy for my honest review.

Wow, I feel so privilege to have been given the opportunity to read and digest this book. A nature and wildlife infused story set in the Pacific Northwest encompassing grief, mental illness, love and forgiveness. This is a book not to be missed!

Aggie is a 10 year old full of spunk and smarts. When she is angry with her Other for forbidding her to climb trees, she devastatingly sets the scene for a fire that destroys her home. She runs to the woods, thinking she has killed both of her parents and will be put in jail for her crime.

“ Riveted to the unfolding devastation, she flailed against blame until shock lifted her outside of herself, detached her from the body she no longer wanted to claim as her own. Until denial, in a brief respite, made her an observer, not the cause.”

Reminiscent of Where The Crawdads Sing, Aggie must rely on the lessons her Father instilled in her about nature, wild animals and survival. Concurrent with Aggie’s story is Celia’s. Left by her Mother several years prior, she and her Dad have learned to rely on each other. When she learns that her Father is leaving her for a work assignment in another country, she feels betrayed and angry. He brings her to stay with her Grandmother, Mender, who lives in the same rural town that Aggies family did. Being an angry teenager, she spitefully plans to runaway.

The stories of the two girls collide, but not before Celia has attracted the attention of a less than up and up young man with a dark side. Aggie and Celia help each other, and in the process learn more about the true meanings of strength and forgiveness.

“I’m afraid he’s a sugar bird, Celia…A term your Grandfather used for someone desperate, scratching and pecking and clawing for a sweet seed that will soothe that ache is his heart.”

I loved the underlying theme of birds and putting broken pieces back together again and the dual voices of Aggie and Celia. The side characters are quirky and interesting and strengthen the story tremendously. The pictures that the author paints with her lyrical writing are beautiful. It is obvious she has done extensive research.

Highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and She Writes Press for the ARC to read and review. Pub date: Aug., 2021.

Sugar Birds is an excellent read! I found Aggie to be extremely scrappy and stubborn in all of the best ways and as a character I felt really drawn to her. The setting of the northern woods in the 1980s is really compelling visually and linguistically. Sugar Birds is an amazing must-read for your bookshelf!

Sugar Birds is really a slow burn of a book that ramps up about halfway through. The story follows two different girls in the same area, one has run away after an accident, the other has been sent to live with a grandmother for a few weeks. While I really did not care for Aggie the runaway character, I did grow to like the older girl. The other characters in the story are great, with the autistic brother being one of the strongest characters in the book. I thought the plot was kind of hit and miss at first, but I ended up really enjoying it. The author is a great storyteller.

Sugar Birds by Cheryl Grey Bostrom is the perfect novel for fans of Where the Crawfish Sing and The Great Alone. From the opening pages, readers explore the Pacific Northwest through the experiences of a memorable group of characters. This novel is both a wilderness novel and story of human survival set in Northwest Washington State.

Ten-year-old Aggie’s love of the outdoors and her precocious nature set the plot into motion when she runs away from home after a tragic family accident to live in the woods. When Celia arrives at her grandmother’s house, the search for Aggie is a diversion from her parents’ marital problems and longing to return to her teen age life full of friends and activities in Texas.

As the lives of these two girls collide, Sugar Birds explores many coming-of-age themes: friendship, independence, acceptance, regret, and redemption. With the forest and natural world as the backdrop, the strength and frailty of the human spirit unfolds forcing Aggie and Celia to fight for their own lives and the lives of those they love.

10 year old Aggie accidentally sets fire to her home, with her parents still inside. Out of guilt and fear of the consequences, she flees into the nearby woods where she starts to survive, relying on the lessons she received from her father. At the same time, 16 year old Celia feels dumped at her Grams for the holidays by her father who has to work on a oil-rig where there is no place for a teenager.

Both voices and actions of the girls are very immature, which is understandable, but the context was often also a bit too childish for my taste. The story is also driven by characters that all battle mental illness: Aggie's mama has bouts of severe depression, her brother Burn is autistic, and I believe that Aggie's reaction to the fire is certainly not normal either. Throw in Celia who is basically an ungrateful walking hormone bomb and then Colt, a first class psychopath and you have a cast of characters where almost no-one is really sane and I found it difficult to engage or feel connected to either one of them. When the author then added some religious elements at the end I was a bit disappointed.

But there are some positives also: the description of the woods, the fauna and flora, and surroundings is very well done, and the interactions with animals is vivid and engaging. The scene with the cougar was truly well done. For me: three stars because the naturalistic elements are quiet good, I just didn't like the characters.

A sincere thanks to the author, Netgalley and the publisher She Writes Press for an advanced copy in exchange for a honest review.

I was captivated by the two heroines — Aggie and Celia — at the center of this story, and found myself compelled to keep reading to see what would happen to them. I really enjoyed this book, particularly because of the nuanced relationships between Aggie and Burnaby, Burnaby and Celia, Celia and her father, and Gram and Burnaby. However, some of the more minor characters fell a bit flat, in my opinion. The author's description of Aggie's mother's mental health issues seemed half-hearted and almost like an afterthought — similarly, Uncle Loomis and Aunt Nora didn't seem as fully rounded as some of the other characters in the book. Still, I really enjoyed the family relationships at the heart of this novel and would recommend it.

Cheryl Grey Bostrom has written a fantastic coming of age story set in the upper Pacific Northwest. It is a story of the healing power of nature, survival, and redemption. Even for those who feel like they may not deserve it.

Aggie (Agate), is taught the way of the woods by her father, to help mend the hurt of her mother's distance caused by depression. Aggie spends hours sketching birds and their nests, and finds solace and healing in the woods. After an argument with her mother for forbidding her to climb trees in the woods, Aggie is angry and accidently starts a fire that destroys her family home. Terrified, she flees into the woods, hiding from searchers, determined not to be found.

Celia has just arrived at her grandmothers farm which is nearby. Reeling from her parents tumultous divorce and feeling abandoned, she is determined to run away too, but joins in the search party for Aggie. There she will meet two young men. One autistic and the other dangerous.

A beautiful story reminiscent of Where The Crawdads Sing. It is a testament to the power of healing and forgiveness through nature.

I was given a copy of this book prior to publishing in exchange for an honest review.
I whipped through this in a matter of days! Hooked into the story from the start. The story is centred around two female characters, and how their journeys intertwine. At its most basic, it is a coming of age story but it so much more than that!
The characters that Bostrom has created are well rounded and relatable. Burnaby's character has autism and this is written in an authentic and sensitive way, she also creates a character with depression. Through different situations Bostrom explores a multitude of emotions and social interactions; the layers to this novel are wonderful! As is the setting, Bostrom either knows a lot about nature and the forest or she did her research! The story felt very grounded in the landscape and level of detail made the fictitious world very vivid for me.
Defintely worth a read and I would watch out for future work from this author.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!

I started reading this book after dinner and couldn’t put it down until I finished in the wee hours of the morning. I’ve seen others comparing this to The Great Alone and Where the Crawdads Sing and must agree.

The beauty of the Pacific Northwest as seen through the eyes of ten year old Aggie and sixteen year old Celia is stunning. I was swept into Aggie’s struggle for survival after she causes an accident that she believes lead to the death of her parents. Celia’s fury at her father for dropping their vacation plans and leaving her with her grandmother is visceral. Both girls struggle with anger and fear and how to express themselves. Aggie’s autistic brother, Burnaby, and Celia’s grandmother, known as Mender, are also characters you come to love as the girls’ stories unfold and merge. I was left wanting to spend more time with this group of unique characters

For years, Harris Hayes has taught his daughter, Aggie, the ways of the northern woods. So when her mother's depression worsens, Harris shows the girl how to find and sketch the nests of wild birds as an antidote to sadness. Aggie is in a tree far overhead when her unpredictable mother spots her and forbids her to climb. Angry, the ten-year-old accidentally lights a tragic fire, then flees downriver. She lands her boat near untamed forest, where she hides among the trees and creatures she considers her only friends—determined to remain undiscovered.

A search party gathers by Aggie’s empty boat hours after Celia, fresh off the plane from Houston, arrives at her grandmother’s nearby farm. Hurting from her parents’ breakup, she also plans to run. But when she joins the hunt for Aggie, she meets two irresistible young men who compel her to stay. One is autistic; the other, dangerous. An inspirational story of friendship which I recommend ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This story sneaks up on you. Family tension, troubled kids, tragedy, remorse….you think you’re following the same old formula, but there are some twists along the way. And somewhere along the way, you find yourself very invested in these characters. Very enjoyable read.

Aggie loves the outdoors, she loves to climb trees and study birds but her mother doesn't want her young ten year old to fall and has forbidden her to climb. After a tense evening with the family there is a devastating fire and Aggie is outside watching in fear. As the firefighters work to control the fire and get her parents out her worst nightmares unfold before her eyes.
Aggie fears that she has caused the fire and is afraid she'll be arrested and put in jail. As she hides from police and searchers she uses what her parents have taught her about plants and tracking to survive.
Close to her home a young girl, Celia had been sent to stay with her grandmother while her father is away for a job. Celia is mad about this unexpected turn in her life away from her friends.
As the summer goes on and Aggie continues to hide she is close enough to see Celia as well as her brother who was not home at the time of the fire and the trouble that follows them both.
This story is absolutely amazing and i highly recommend it.

I confess that I was drawn to this book by it's gorgeous cover, lovely title and because it's not a genre that I regulalry dip into. What I discovered was a delightfully gentle and sweet story that also explored some significant relational themes. On some levels this was an innocent read - almost middle grade in style - largely because the central characters were young. This added an extra tension to the survival motif, and was a great device to explore broken relationships, mental illness, guilt and redemption.
The strength of this book was the author's deft descriptions of the natural world and her delightful cast of characters. I was grateful that the pace picked up in the second half of the novel, and there was a satisfying resolution, without being cliched. I found "Sugarbirds" to be a simple and heartfelt story of friendship and survival and recommend it to those who enjoy survival stories and pondering how broken and beautiful human relationships can be.

This was an enjoyable story, but I felt like everything was wrapped up really quickly at the end and tied up with a neat bow. I'm not saying that was a bad thing, but it started out really interesting and kind of lagged in the middle, and then to me it felt like we rushed the ending to get everything tied up neatly.

Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

So many great reviews for this book,that I feel I missed something somewhere.
An enjoyable story,but I never really got totally invested in any of the characters.
Though,there's a good chance I've come away more knowledgeable about nature.

Sugar Birds will have you feeling all the feels! This book is bound to make your heart swell!
Such a beautiful book about family, nature, and just being human!
I was very much drawn to these characters! It is a well-paced, dramatic story of resilience and redemption!
I couldn't put my Kindle down! Literally read in less than a day! Its that dang good!

Thank you NetGalley and She Writes Press for this amazing advance ebook copy!.