Birdy

Fifteen-year-old Frances Bird's home life with her Nan and Grandad in their joyless house is pretty depressing. School is equally dismal: she's an outsider, without friends. When she's tasked with looking after new girl, Alberta Fitzroy-Black, life is transformed.

Bertie's everything Frances isn't; confident, sociable, and popular.  Under Bertie's wing Frances (now Birdy) blooms. However, once other people, especially boys, get involved; complications and jealousies arise. And now she has a friend, Birdy can't even begin to contemplate losing her. Her efforts to keep Bertie's friendship become stranger, darker and more dangerous. 

There's a delicious twist to the denouement of this intense, claustrophobic relationship; school rivalries and passions are vividly described; and Birdy's memorable, breezily assured voice conceals an emotionally damaged, potentially dangerous girl. Dazzlingly addictive!