I’m so glad I picked up another Brandy Colbert. The Revolution of Birdie Randolph, like Little & Lion, was a great contemporary and the exact kind of coming of age story that I love to read. This book confirmed to me that Colbert is a seriously underrated author and I would recommend her work if you enjoy grounded contemporary stories that feel like authentic portrayals of the current teen experience.

The Revolution of Birdie Randolph is a coming of age story following the titular Dove ‘Birdie’ Randolph. Birdie is the daughter of strict but well-meaning parents. This story follows Birdie coming into her own and learning to push back against the claustrophobic expectations her parents place on her. Throughout this novel Birdie deals with the stress of lying about a boyfriend her parents wouldn’t approve of and the friction between her recovering addict aunt Carlene and her mother.

The more YA contemporary I read the more I value connecting with the teens on the page. Colbert has an authentic voice and I appreciated seeing pieces of myself in Birdie Randolph. From the way academic pressure weighs on her, to the comfort she finds in getting her hair done the sprinkles of truth within this novel spoke to me. But I also love seeing teens with wildly different lives from me reflected in stories. I don’t have the kind of overbearing mother that Birdie did, but Colbert still easily conveyed to me how having a parent with specific and rigid plans for your future would feel.

Birdie’s mother, Kitty is such an interesting character. She’s neither abusive nor dictatorial in her child-rearing, but Colbert explores how Kitty’s personality lends itself to alienating her daughters. Colbert captures the subtly judgmental atmosphere black parents invested in respectability cultivate. From implying homeless people are lesser to an obsession with appearances the details woven throughout about Kitty’s personality made her feel like an authentic yet empathetically written person. The specificity of Colbert’s writing made me see a lot of my own family in this book

It was wonderful to see Birdie grow into her own person and form her identity outside of her mother’s expectations. What made this book unique was the nuance in the depiction of Birdie’s relationship with her parents. Stories can be sensationalist and YA usually leans into framing parents as completely awful or perfect so seeing the middle ground in the Randolph family was much appreciated. Birdie learned to be her own person without complete cutting ties with her family and It was lovely to see a teenager can navigate that.

I was slow to warm to the romance between Birdie and Booker but it eventually won me over. Colbert is very good at conveying the enormity of emotion that adolescent romances illicit. Birdie and Booker are adorably in love in a particularly teenage way. While I found it slightly cloying in the beginning I did warm to the fluffiness of it all did warm in the end. I appreciated how Colbert modelled what a safe and loving high school romance can look like and she discussed safe sex in a way that didn’t feel too ‘afternoon special’ to be eye-roll inducing.

I also want to celebrate the casual queerness of this book. Oftentimes blackness and queerness are framed as two separate and distinct categories that don’t overlap so I appreciated that so many of the side characters in this book were in the LGBT community. Birdie is surrounded by queer people and Colbert did the work to make that aspect of their identities feel like an authentic part of their character rather than a checkbox.

In the end, The Revolution of Birdie Randolph was a wonderful, well-rounded coming of age story. I loved Colbert’s approach towards teen stories and think that anyone with a love for YA contemporaries should check this one out as soon as possible.