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Whidbey
Not yet published
Expected 10 Mar 26A stunning literary achievement and portrait of three women connected through one man in the aftermath of his murder—the explosive and highly anticipated debut novel from beloved and award-winning memoirist, T Kira Madden.
Birdie Chang didn’t know anything about Whidbey Island when she chose it, only that it was about as far away as she could get from her own life. She’s a woman on the run, desperate for an escape from the headlines back home and the look of concern in her girlfriend’s eyes—and from Calvin Boyer, the man who abused her as a child and who’s now resurfaced. On her way, she has an unnerving encounter with a stranger on the ferry who offers her a proposition, a sinister solution, a plan for revenge.
But Birdie isn’t the only girl Calvin harmed back then. There’s also Linzie King, a former reality TV star who recently wrote all about it in her bestselling memoir. Though the two women have never met, their stories intertwine. Once Birdie arrives on Whidbey, she finally cracks the book’s spine, only to find too much she recognizes in its pages. Soon after, on the other side of the country, Calvin’s loving mother, Mary-Beth, receives a shocking phone call from the police: her only son has been murdered.
Calvin’s death sets into motion a series of events that sends each woman on a desperate search for answers. A complex whodunnit told from alternating points of view, Whidbey is searingly perceptive and astonishingly original. Exploring the long reach of violence and our flawed systems of incarceration and rehabilitation, this is a tense and provocative debut that’s sure to incite crucial questions about the pursuit of justice and who has real power over a story: the one who lives it, or the one who tells it?
Birdie Chang didn’t know anything about Whidbey Island when she chose it, only that it was about as far away as she could get from her own life. She’s a woman on the run, desperate for an escape from the headlines back home and the look of concern in her girlfriend’s eyes—and from Calvin Boyer, the man who abused her as a child and who’s now resurfaced. On her way, she has an unnerving encounter with a stranger on the ferry who offers her a proposition, a sinister solution, a plan for revenge.
But Birdie isn’t the only girl Calvin harmed back then. There’s also Linzie King, a former reality TV star who recently wrote all about it in her bestselling memoir. Though the two women have never met, their stories intertwine. Once Birdie arrives on Whidbey, she finally cracks the book’s spine, only to find too much she recognizes in its pages. Soon after, on the other side of the country, Calvin’s loving mother, Mary-Beth, receives a shocking phone call from the police: her only son has been murdered.
Calvin’s death sets into motion a series of events that sends each woman on a desperate search for answers. A complex whodunnit told from alternating points of view, Whidbey is searingly perceptive and astonishingly original. Exploring the long reach of violence and our flawed systems of incarceration and rehabilitation, this is a tense and provocative debut that’s sure to incite crucial questions about the pursuit of justice and who has real power over a story: the one who lives it, or the one who tells it?
384 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication March 10, 2026
35 people are currently reading
30074 people want to read
About the author
T Kira Madden
5 books771 followersT Kira Māhealani Madden is a diasporic Kanaka 'Ōiwi (Native Hawaiian) writer and author of the novel Whidbey, forthcoming with Mariner in 2026. Her memoir, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, was named a New York Times Editors' Choice, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and the Lambda Literary Award. She is the Founding Editor of No Tokens, a magazine of literature and art, and has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Hedgebrook, Tin House, MacDowell, Yaddo, and Lō’ihi. Winner of the 2021 Judith A. Markowitz Award, she served as the Distinguished Writer in Residence at University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and currently teaches at Hamilton College as an assistant professor in Creative Writing and Indigenous literatures.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 106 reviews
December 28, 2025
Whidbey might be one of the most brilliant releases of 2026. With its deep psychological exploration and its compassionate approach to multiple perspectives, it shows how trauma lives differently inside each person—how the same tragedy can wound, transform, and reshape lives in completely different ways. Sadness seeps from every page. The raw, heart-wrenching prose speaks directly to your soul, echoing loneliness, grief, and all the words left unsaid. As each character’s buried pain rises to the surface, your own invisible scars begin to ache too. This is a powerful character study and an emotionally immersive drama that pulls you in from the very first page with its distinctive, original storytelling.
The novel unfolds through the points of view of three women, all bound by dark pasts that have shaped who they are—and all connected by a shocking murder that upends their present lives.
Birdie Chang is the first. We meet her on a ferry headed to Whidbey Island, searching for isolation and a fragile sense of peace after a lifetime of unhealed childhood trauma. She is running from a stalker, a man who molested her and shattered her sense of safety. In a moment of vulnerability, she blurts out his name to a stranger on the ferry—an eerie, modern echo of Strangers on a Train. The scarred man half-jokingly tells her he’ll kill him. Birdie brushes it off… until she later learns that the very man who destroyed her childhood—and whose case was dismissed by the courts—has been murdered. Panic sets in. Did her words matter? Did she somehow set this in motion? Her fear deepens when her longtime girlfriend, Trace, begins acting like she’s hiding something. Suddenly, even the person she trusts most feels like a stranger.
Then there is Mary Beth, the mother of Calvin Boyer—the convicted pedophile who is found murdered inside the facility where he was incarcerated. Mary Beth may be the most heartbreaking and resonant character in the book. Abandoned years ago by her husband, she raised her son alone, clinging to unconditional love and the hope that treatment could help him change. She dreamed of his release, of starting over, of rebuilding some version of a life together. Now he’s gone. She can barely breathe, yet she keeps showing up for her shifts at a gas station, dressed in an elf costume, surrounded by the cruel irony of holiday cheer while carrying unbearable grief inside. Her sister Syl moves in with her, leaving behind her husband, twin daughters, and farm life to offer support—but even that feels heavy and complicated. When Mary Beth’s ex-husband suddenly reappears, claiming he may know who killed their son, she is pulled into a spiral of new secrets, danger, and devastating choices that threaten to fracture what little stability she has left.
And finally, Lizzie King—a former dating show star whose life changes after she speaks publicly about Calvin Boyer. Seeking to shape the narrative and capitalize on the moment, her father hires a ghostwriter to produce a sensational memoir that doesn’t fully reflect the truth. The book brings Lizzie fame, attention, and influence—but also fierce backlash from victims who feel their pain is being exploited, including Birdie. Lizzie becomes a lightning rod for hard questions: Is she a pawn in her father’s ambitions, or a willing participant? Is she an opportunist benefiting from others’ suffering, or another damaged soul trying to survive? And could she somehow be connected to the murder itself?
The story dares to ask painful, uncomfortable questions. Can a molester ever truly change? What does justice look like when the system fails? What happens to the mothers who love their children despite everything they’ve done? And what about the victims left behind—can they ever fully heal? Can forgiveness exist without erasing the harm? Or will trauma always find ways to resurface, sometimes twisted into rage, silence, or even the hunger for attention and meaning?
There are many sides to this story, many voices, many truths. But at its core, Whidbey is about real pain—raw, complicated, and deeply human—and the desperate search for a way to live with it.
This book is profoundly thought-provoking, a brilliantly executed character study, and a slow-burn psychological mystery blended seamlessly with women’s fiction. I savored it slowly, wanting to absorb every detail, every emotion, every quiet moment, even as the characters’ suffering broke my heart again and again. It’s the kind of story that lingers long after you turn the last page.
This is one of the best books you should not miss.
A huge thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for sharing this powerful thriller/women’s fiction digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.
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The novel unfolds through the points of view of three women, all bound by dark pasts that have shaped who they are—and all connected by a shocking murder that upends their present lives.
Birdie Chang is the first. We meet her on a ferry headed to Whidbey Island, searching for isolation and a fragile sense of peace after a lifetime of unhealed childhood trauma. She is running from a stalker, a man who molested her and shattered her sense of safety. In a moment of vulnerability, she blurts out his name to a stranger on the ferry—an eerie, modern echo of Strangers on a Train. The scarred man half-jokingly tells her he’ll kill him. Birdie brushes it off… until she later learns that the very man who destroyed her childhood—and whose case was dismissed by the courts—has been murdered. Panic sets in. Did her words matter? Did she somehow set this in motion? Her fear deepens when her longtime girlfriend, Trace, begins acting like she’s hiding something. Suddenly, even the person she trusts most feels like a stranger.
Then there is Mary Beth, the mother of Calvin Boyer—the convicted pedophile who is found murdered inside the facility where he was incarcerated. Mary Beth may be the most heartbreaking and resonant character in the book. Abandoned years ago by her husband, she raised her son alone, clinging to unconditional love and the hope that treatment could help him change. She dreamed of his release, of starting over, of rebuilding some version of a life together. Now he’s gone. She can barely breathe, yet she keeps showing up for her shifts at a gas station, dressed in an elf costume, surrounded by the cruel irony of holiday cheer while carrying unbearable grief inside. Her sister Syl moves in with her, leaving behind her husband, twin daughters, and farm life to offer support—but even that feels heavy and complicated. When Mary Beth’s ex-husband suddenly reappears, claiming he may know who killed their son, she is pulled into a spiral of new secrets, danger, and devastating choices that threaten to fracture what little stability she has left.
And finally, Lizzie King—a former dating show star whose life changes after she speaks publicly about Calvin Boyer. Seeking to shape the narrative and capitalize on the moment, her father hires a ghostwriter to produce a sensational memoir that doesn’t fully reflect the truth. The book brings Lizzie fame, attention, and influence—but also fierce backlash from victims who feel their pain is being exploited, including Birdie. Lizzie becomes a lightning rod for hard questions: Is she a pawn in her father’s ambitions, or a willing participant? Is she an opportunist benefiting from others’ suffering, or another damaged soul trying to survive? And could she somehow be connected to the murder itself?
The story dares to ask painful, uncomfortable questions. Can a molester ever truly change? What does justice look like when the system fails? What happens to the mothers who love their children despite everything they’ve done? And what about the victims left behind—can they ever fully heal? Can forgiveness exist without erasing the harm? Or will trauma always find ways to resurface, sometimes twisted into rage, silence, or even the hunger for attention and meaning?
There are many sides to this story, many voices, many truths. But at its core, Whidbey is about real pain—raw, complicated, and deeply human—and the desperate search for a way to live with it.
This book is profoundly thought-provoking, a brilliantly executed character study, and a slow-burn psychological mystery blended seamlessly with women’s fiction. I savored it slowly, wanting to absorb every detail, every emotion, every quiet moment, even as the characters’ suffering broke my heart again and again. It’s the kind of story that lingers long after you turn the last page.
This is one of the best books you should not miss.
A huge thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for sharing this powerful thriller/women’s fiction digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.
Follow me on medium.com to read my articles about books, movies, streaming series, astrology:
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October 6, 2025
Dear readers, this story will be incredibly personal to you. You, too, might have experienced childhood trauma that is talked about in this book. If you are one of the lucky ones, and have not, I’m sure you know someone who has.
The book is about two women who were sexually abused by the same man when they were children. I will share that the abuse is not in great detail, thank gawd for that. It’s handled with grace.
Another important character here is the mother of the abuser. Imagine finding out your son had done those things, how would you feel? Imagine being in her shoes.
This is a queer dark literary fiction that will be huge in 2026! Whidbey is a character study of the human condition and boy, is it powerful! How these women think and just how relatable they are. I was completely mesmerized by Madden’s writing. It is absolutely stellar! In fact, I was so in awe, that I felt I wasn’t worthy of writing this review.
This is the book everyone will be talking about! Evocative, shocking, and downright disturbing. I am in awe of this author’s work! Top 10 of 2025 for me! Please add this to your TBR!!!
5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Massive thanks to Mariner Books and T Kira Madden for my beautiful gifted copy.
Expected Pub Date - 3/2026
The book is about two women who were sexually abused by the same man when they were children. I will share that the abuse is not in great detail, thank gawd for that. It’s handled with grace.
Another important character here is the mother of the abuser. Imagine finding out your son had done those things, how would you feel? Imagine being in her shoes.
This is a queer dark literary fiction that will be huge in 2026! Whidbey is a character study of the human condition and boy, is it powerful! How these women think and just how relatable they are. I was completely mesmerized by Madden’s writing. It is absolutely stellar! In fact, I was so in awe, that I felt I wasn’t worthy of writing this review.
This is the book everyone will be talking about! Evocative, shocking, and downright disturbing. I am in awe of this author’s work! Top 10 of 2025 for me! Please add this to your TBR!!!
5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Massive thanks to Mariner Books and T Kira Madden for my beautiful gifted copy.
Expected Pub Date - 3/2026
September 19, 2025
ARC for review. To be published March 10, 2026.
3 stars
“There are child molestors, sexual abusers, pedophiles, and then there are Calvins,” says this book, but Calvin really is the first three things too. The book covers Calvin, his mother, Mary-Beth, her sister Sylvia and two of Calvin’s victims, Linzie and Birdie, years after the abuse of the girls. Now Calvin and s a resident of a community specifically for those in the sex offender registry (including a poor woman who is listed on the registry after being found guilty of public urination. I hope that hasn’t really happened.).
Linzie has written a book about her experiences both with Calvin and on a reality show where her trauma was used for ratings.
Birdie has never really come to terms. Her partner, Trace, had sent her on a month-long visit to Whidbey Island in the Pacific Northwest to reflect.
The third section of the book adds an omniscient narrator who reveals secrets. It was a bit odd. Overall, though, the book was fine. It was interesting to read what becomes of people who are CSAs and I would have liked more coverage of that.
3 stars
“There are child molestors, sexual abusers, pedophiles, and then there are Calvins,” says this book, but Calvin really is the first three things too. The book covers Calvin, his mother, Mary-Beth, her sister Sylvia and two of Calvin’s victims, Linzie and Birdie, years after the abuse of the girls. Now Calvin and s a resident of a community specifically for those in the sex offender registry (including a poor woman who is listed on the registry after being found guilty of public urination. I hope that hasn’t really happened.).
Linzie has written a book about her experiences both with Calvin and on a reality show where her trauma was used for ratings.
Birdie has never really come to terms. Her partner, Trace, had sent her on a month-long visit to Whidbey Island in the Pacific Northwest to reflect.
The third section of the book adds an omniscient narrator who reveals secrets. It was a bit odd. Overall, though, the book was fine. It was interesting to read what becomes of people who are CSAs and I would have liked more coverage of that.
July 7, 2025
One of the best things I’ve read in recent memory and also one of the most difficult. Madden’s remarkable empathy for her characters makes this book all the more heartbreaking.
December 5, 2025
4.5 ! Full rtc
2026
November 12, 2025ANHPI TBR
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books
November 7, 2025
When I tell you this book will build your empathy as much as it did your righteous anger, I mean this in the darkest way. The author says this book is about the commodification of suffering, and this is a sweeping theme across the novel and the years. This book sucked me in so thoroughly and absolutely gutted me from the beginning. The writing style is like Allie Larkin (The People We Keep, Home of the American Circus) along with a murder mystery and along with disturbing subject matter.
The book follows Birdie, a victim of sexual abuse, as she flees to Whidbey, a remote island off the Washington coast. In alternating chapters, we read the POV of Mary Beth, the mother of the convicted pedophile Calvin Boyer. I think I found Mary Beth’s chapters the most heartbreaking. She somehow has to grieve her son, while making sense of his lifetime as an abuser. In act two, Linzie’s POV is added as well, one of Calvin’s later victims who wrote a memoir about her experiences and ended up on a reality show similar to The Bachelor.
It is truly haunting that the author manages to make Calvin a tragic empathetic character, considering she is a survivor of sexual abuse from a young age.
If you are in the mood for something extremely engaging and deep, I know this book will be one people are talking about.
Thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the ARC. Book to be published March 9, 2025.
The book follows Birdie, a victim of sexual abuse, as she flees to Whidbey, a remote island off the Washington coast. In alternating chapters, we read the POV of Mary Beth, the mother of the convicted pedophile Calvin Boyer. I think I found Mary Beth’s chapters the most heartbreaking. She somehow has to grieve her son, while making sense of his lifetime as an abuser. In act two, Linzie’s POV is added as well, one of Calvin’s later victims who wrote a memoir about her experiences and ended up on a reality show similar to The Bachelor.
It is truly haunting that the author manages to make Calvin a tragic empathetic character, considering she is a survivor of sexual abuse from a young age.
If you are in the mood for something extremely engaging and deep, I know this book will be one people are talking about.
Thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the ARC. Book to be published March 9, 2025.
December 8, 2025
Oof.
Okay well I can see this being a very buzzy read, the plot in theory is interesting but the rest was lacking.
Poorly drawn characters that felt unbelievable and not relatable.
Clunky dialogue.
And the end, womp womp, heavy eye roll.
Not for me.
Okay well I can see this being a very buzzy read, the plot in theory is interesting but the rest was lacking.
Poorly drawn characters that felt unbelievable and not relatable.
Clunky dialogue.
And the end, womp womp, heavy eye roll.
Not for me.
September 23, 2025
Whidbey is the kind of novel that gets under your skin, that makes you confront the uncomfortable questions. I appreciate the way T Kira humanizes all her characters — even the “monster” of the story has a mother who loves him, has people who will miss him. This was as twisty and tense as the best genre thriller, and literary in a way that makes me wish I was more eloquent, so I could fully put into words this book’s impact on me. I’m going to be thinking about this one for a long time.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
T. Kira Madden’s Whidbey is a profoundly unsettling and unflinching novel—one that demands emotional stamina from its reader and offers little reprieve from its relentless examination of trauma. Gratefully, I have not been a victim of child sexual abuse, yet this book felt so raw and viscerally rendered that it could undoubtedly serve as a trigger for those who have endured such violations. Madden does not soften the blows; the pain is ever-present, cumulative, and suffocating.
I found the novel oppressive and, at times, exceedingly difficult to persevere through—not because of any failure in craft, but precisely because the anguish never relents. Roughly three-quarters of the way through, I found myself wanting the book to simply end, as the emotional weight had become all-consuming. This is not a narrative that offers catharsis or comfort; instead, it immerses the reader in the aftermath of abuse and refuses to look away.
The story unfolds through alternating perspectives: Birdie and Linzie, the girls whose childhoods were irrevocably damaged; their abuser; and, chillingly, the abuser’s mother. Each voice reveals a different, often disturbing, method of coping with devastation—through denial, displacement, rationalization, or silent endurance. Madden’s choice to include the interior life of the abuser and his mother is particularly provocative, forcing the reader into morally uncomfortable territory and raising difficult questions about complicity, willful blindness, and generational harm.
When the abuser is abruptly killed after being run over by a car, the novel ostensibly shifts into the terrain of a mystery. Yet this is a mystery in only the loosest sense. The search for answers unfolds slowly, almost reluctantly, and serves more as a narrative scaffold than a driving force. The true focus of Whidbey lies not in plot resolution but in the internal landscapes of its characters—their fractured psyches, their unresolved rage, and their attempts, however faltering, to survive what cannot be undone.
Madden writes with a precision that suggests intimate familiarity with her subject matter. The prose is spare, controlled, and unsparing, mirroring the emotional barrenness experienced by the characters themselves. She accomplishes exactly what she sets out to do: to bear witness, to name the damage, and to refuse the consolations of easy redemption. But this achievement comes at a cost—to the reader, who must sit with discomfort and despair, and who may close the book feeling shaken rather than soothed.
Whidbey is a powerful and courageous novel, but it is not an easy one. It demands to be read slowly, deliberately, and with emotional preparedness. For readers willing to endure its darkness, it offers a stark and necessary meditation on trauma, silence, and the long shadows cast by abuse.
thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review
I found the novel oppressive and, at times, exceedingly difficult to persevere through—not because of any failure in craft, but precisely because the anguish never relents. Roughly three-quarters of the way through, I found myself wanting the book to simply end, as the emotional weight had become all-consuming. This is not a narrative that offers catharsis or comfort; instead, it immerses the reader in the aftermath of abuse and refuses to look away.
The story unfolds through alternating perspectives: Birdie and Linzie, the girls whose childhoods were irrevocably damaged; their abuser; and, chillingly, the abuser’s mother. Each voice reveals a different, often disturbing, method of coping with devastation—through denial, displacement, rationalization, or silent endurance. Madden’s choice to include the interior life of the abuser and his mother is particularly provocative, forcing the reader into morally uncomfortable territory and raising difficult questions about complicity, willful blindness, and generational harm.
When the abuser is abruptly killed after being run over by a car, the novel ostensibly shifts into the terrain of a mystery. Yet this is a mystery in only the loosest sense. The search for answers unfolds slowly, almost reluctantly, and serves more as a narrative scaffold than a driving force. The true focus of Whidbey lies not in plot resolution but in the internal landscapes of its characters—their fractured psyches, their unresolved rage, and their attempts, however faltering, to survive what cannot be undone.
Madden writes with a precision that suggests intimate familiarity with her subject matter. The prose is spare, controlled, and unsparing, mirroring the emotional barrenness experienced by the characters themselves. She accomplishes exactly what she sets out to do: to bear witness, to name the damage, and to refuse the consolations of easy redemption. But this achievement comes at a cost—to the reader, who must sit with discomfort and despair, and who may close the book feeling shaken rather than soothed.
Whidbey is a powerful and courageous novel, but it is not an easy one. It demands to be read slowly, deliberately, and with emotional preparedness. For readers willing to endure its darkness, it offers a stark and necessary meditation on trauma, silence, and the long shadows cast by abuse.
thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review
November 2, 2025
Book Report: Whidbey by T Kira Madden
As soon as I saw the title my PNW heart was all in🌲and can we take a moment for this cover?! 😍 I’ll be picking up a finished copy for that alone.
Now… let’s get into the story.
This dark literary fiction felt like a character study 🌀three very different people each scarred and shaped by trauma and all connected by one chilling thread. It’s not an easy read but it shouldn’t be. Madden doesn’t flinch from discomfort. Her writing? Effortless yet piercing. Every section felt distinct and embodied…I felt fumbly and heavy reading Mary-Beth’s POV 🤍…isolated and raw through Birdie’s 🕯️and uncertain almost performative inside Linzie’s. Each voice carried its own ache, and together they formed something hauntingly cohesive.
The pacing is deliberate the tension slow burning but when the threads finally pull tight at the end it’s such a satisfying scope of everything that came before. This was my first by Madden but definitely not my last. I already have her others queued up🖤
✨ “The worst part of being alive has always been my general loathing of people but my sporadic, frantic need for them.”
A book that lingers long after the final page uncomfortable…necessary and beautifully told. Please be aware of content warnings which the author address in the book.
Thank you mariner for the ecopy and my favorite indie bookstore Beach Books for sending me a copy.
Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Lyon.brit.A...
As soon as I saw the title my PNW heart was all in🌲and can we take a moment for this cover?! 😍 I’ll be picking up a finished copy for that alone.
Now… let’s get into the story.
This dark literary fiction felt like a character study 🌀three very different people each scarred and shaped by trauma and all connected by one chilling thread. It’s not an easy read but it shouldn’t be. Madden doesn’t flinch from discomfort. Her writing? Effortless yet piercing. Every section felt distinct and embodied…I felt fumbly and heavy reading Mary-Beth’s POV 🤍…isolated and raw through Birdie’s 🕯️and uncertain almost performative inside Linzie’s. Each voice carried its own ache, and together they formed something hauntingly cohesive.
The pacing is deliberate the tension slow burning but when the threads finally pull tight at the end it’s such a satisfying scope of everything that came before. This was my first by Madden but definitely not my last. I already have her others queued up🖤
✨ “The worst part of being alive has always been my general loathing of people but my sporadic, frantic need for them.”
A book that lingers long after the final page uncomfortable…necessary and beautifully told. Please be aware of content warnings which the author address in the book.
Thank you mariner for the ecopy and my favorite indie bookstore Beach Books for sending me a copy.
Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Lyon.brit.A...
December 14, 2025
Thanks to NetGalley & HarperCollins for the opportunity to read this tremendous and timely book. My brain is a little blasted because if ever a text could be termed "compulsively readable"--this one swings for the fences. Right out of the park. Intricate, careful writing. I don't like to summarize but I do like to compare, and this one---well, it is right there with JCO's Fox, which I read earlier this year thanks to NetGalley & Random House/Hogarth Press. Seems it's the time of the season. Zeitgeist. There will be detractors. There will be readers scandalized, disgusted, disbelieving.. Maybe some of those angry people can take a step back and examine their responses, and ask themselves, if this is too much, where's my outermost boundary of not-too-much? If this is unbelievable..., well, where do we draw the line? How firm are our convictions, our will to convict, our tendency to apply victimhood perhaps sometimes illogically given our perception of who's who in a power imbalance?
But about the book, the text itself--well, I'm breathless. That feeling of closing the book and needing to keep my hand on it as if it were a vulnerable animal in my care, this story, these stories so befitting and deserving of tender recognition. Wth each perspective shift I felt a pang of letting go of one voice, and a greedy need to hear the next. Filling in the blanks of perspective's blind spots, each character well-drawn and individual, desperate, connected, prejuidicial, misunderstood. All striving for --truth? betterment? redemption? revenge? striving blindly while running to stand still? All of these. It's a remarkable machine, and Madden is a brilliant Divine Clocksmith. It is stunning to read this and remember that it is a debut novel. I hope for more while recognizing the power and scope and singularity of Whidby.
One last thing: I wish Dorothy Allison could read this book, because I bet she'd like it. Rest in Peace Dorothy.
But about the book, the text itself--well, I'm breathless. That feeling of closing the book and needing to keep my hand on it as if it were a vulnerable animal in my care, this story, these stories so befitting and deserving of tender recognition. Wth each perspective shift I felt a pang of letting go of one voice, and a greedy need to hear the next. Filling in the blanks of perspective's blind spots, each character well-drawn and individual, desperate, connected, prejuidicial, misunderstood. All striving for --truth? betterment? redemption? revenge? striving blindly while running to stand still? All of these. It's a remarkable machine, and Madden is a brilliant Divine Clocksmith. It is stunning to read this and remember that it is a debut novel. I hope for more while recognizing the power and scope and singularity of Whidby.
One last thing: I wish Dorothy Allison could read this book, because I bet she'd like it. Rest in Peace Dorothy.
November 12, 2025
The subject matter of this book and the author‘s ability to address something this deep and traumatic were done well.
The downside of this book was the writing style just didn’t work for me. It was very ambiguous and very drawn out, and that can work, but the way it was done in this book just didn’t work for me personally.
The way the subject matter was addressed in the points it made about the subject matter were very true and will stick with a lot of people especially people that have experienced CSA.
The ambiguity in the book was hard for me. I wasn’t even sure who was guilty and I can’t even say who I’m talking about because I don’t want to give anything away, but I was definitely like did they do it?? I I would recommend everyone check this book out!
The downside of this book was the writing style just didn’t work for me. It was very ambiguous and very drawn out, and that can work, but the way it was done in this book just didn’t work for me personally.
The way the subject matter was addressed in the points it made about the subject matter were very true and will stick with a lot of people especially people that have experienced CSA.
The ambiguity in the book was hard for me. I wasn’t even sure who was guilty and I can’t even say who I’m talking about because I don’t want to give anything away, but I was definitely like did they do it?? I I would recommend everyone check this book out!
December 7, 2025
A very difficult read, that puts you inside the heads of women survivors of childhood sexual abuse and the manifestations of trauma in their adult lives. The book alternates narrators between Birdie Chang and Linzie King, two survivors of childhoods sexual assault by the same man, Calvin Boyer, and Mary-Beth Boyer, Calvin's mother, in the aftermath of his murder. Linzie has just published a best-selling memoir about her sexual abuse, which also includes details of Birdie's abuse obtained from court records, without Birdie's permission (the two have never met). With the help of her girlfriend Trace, Birdie goes into hiding on Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound to avoid the media frenzy around the book, and - Trace hopes - to avoid hearing any details about the book. Learning more about the three main female characters (as well as a few others who come into play later) from each of their perspectives allows readers to empathize with each of them and why they have acted the way they did. This book is not an easy read, but the stories - particularly Linzie's life story - will stay with me for a long time.
Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the e-ARC.
Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the e-ARC.
December 5, 2025
This felt like a book in two halves and I loved the first half. The writing was atmospheric, especially the chapters that focused on Mary Beth. Birdie’s trauma and Linzie’s POV were all excellent additions that really brought this book to life.
The second half, however, felt messy and rushed. I found myself skim reading through the narrative change and only stuck it out to find out who killed Calvin. The writing style seemed to have changed too, it all felt very choppy. An interesting premise, with slightly confusing narratives.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for kindly providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. #Whibdey #NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
The second half, however, felt messy and rushed. I found myself skim reading through the narrative change and only stuck it out to find out who killed Calvin. The writing style seemed to have changed too, it all felt very choppy. An interesting premise, with slightly confusing narratives.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for kindly providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. #Whibdey #NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
November 12, 2025
Thanks to Net Galley and the Publisher for the digital ARC. Opinions are mine.
Incredibly well-written, and incredibly hard to read. At the end of the book you will find the author’s content warning. This is a story about child sexual abuse, told from the perspective of victims, the perpetrator, relatives (especially the mother of Calvin, the perpetrator). While switching perspectives can cause a challenge, and some sections written almost like stream of consciousness from the person who’s currently telling their side of the story, there’s much to compel while reading this book.
However, I can’t say I enjoyed it. I can’t say there was a single character in the book that I liked, or hoped to champion. I can’t even say that I’ll recommend it to anyone, yet my bones tell me this is going to be an important book.
Rating a three because reading it is murky and disturbing, but the prose is outstanding.
Incredibly well-written, and incredibly hard to read. At the end of the book you will find the author’s content warning. This is a story about child sexual abuse, told from the perspective of victims, the perpetrator, relatives (especially the mother of Calvin, the perpetrator). While switching perspectives can cause a challenge, and some sections written almost like stream of consciousness from the person who’s currently telling their side of the story, there’s much to compel while reading this book.
However, I can’t say I enjoyed it. I can’t say there was a single character in the book that I liked, or hoped to champion. I can’t even say that I’ll recommend it to anyone, yet my bones tell me this is going to be an important book.
Rating a three because reading it is murky and disturbing, but the prose is outstanding.
November 15, 2025
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Ummmm.....it's complicated. Four stars for writing and negative ten stars for traumatic content? Is there a scale for that?
This is one of the most dificult books I've read. In many ways, it's a great novel. It's also incredibly awful content, and I don't see myself recommending this to anyone. I do imagine that if I hear of folks who are interested in reading, I'll be performing a lengthy monologue about what they need to know before they proceed.
Also, this is very well written and intriguing in many ways. So to be clear, this isn't bad writing or poor conception. It's just...out of what I think will be many people's scope. I also think it could be invaluable to others who are looking for a window or mirror into this experience.
Like I said. It's complicated.
The central issue here is that this entire book centers on CSA. The perpetrator is at the core, but he is...humanized. His mother is a primary figure. She's not the monster you assume she will be (at least not in a clear cut way). Know who else is featured here? Survivors of CSA. Also, their experiences are included in varying degrees of detail. To be clear, there IS detail. Of CSA.
I am not a survivor of CSA. I do work with many people who are survivors of SA and DV in their adult lives, so I hear a lot of detail about these circumstances on a regular basis. Even with this experience, I had a very difficult time getting through this material.
Madden is as responsible as one can be if they're going to choose to write on this. There's a clear CW, including what is included and why. The acknowledgements section includes people like Chanel Miller.
For me, the payoff was not worth the content management. I will absolutely read more from this author, but I learned that I won't intentionally read about this subject in this format again. Prospective readers need to be very mindful about this one.
*Special thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for this arc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
Ummmm.....it's complicated. Four stars for writing and negative ten stars for traumatic content? Is there a scale for that?
This is one of the most dificult books I've read. In many ways, it's a great novel. It's also incredibly awful content, and I don't see myself recommending this to anyone. I do imagine that if I hear of folks who are interested in reading, I'll be performing a lengthy monologue about what they need to know before they proceed.
Also, this is very well written and intriguing in many ways. So to be clear, this isn't bad writing or poor conception. It's just...out of what I think will be many people's scope. I also think it could be invaluable to others who are looking for a window or mirror into this experience.
Like I said. It's complicated.
The central issue here is that this entire book centers on CSA. The perpetrator is at the core, but he is...humanized. His mother is a primary figure. She's not the monster you assume she will be (at least not in a clear cut way). Know who else is featured here? Survivors of CSA. Also, their experiences are included in varying degrees of detail. To be clear, there IS detail. Of CSA.
I am not a survivor of CSA. I do work with many people who are survivors of SA and DV in their adult lives, so I hear a lot of detail about these circumstances on a regular basis. Even with this experience, I had a very difficult time getting through this material.
Madden is as responsible as one can be if they're going to choose to write on this. There's a clear CW, including what is included and why. The acknowledgements section includes people like Chanel Miller.
For me, the payoff was not worth the content management. I will absolutely read more from this author, but I learned that I won't intentionally read about this subject in this format again. Prospective readers need to be very mindful about this one.
*Special thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for this arc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
November 10, 2025
challenging, horrifying, beautiful, complex, poetic, different from anything else I've read. because of the subject matter I know this book won't be for everyone, but I wish it could be.
September 5, 2025
Birdie Chang is heading to Whidbey Island, the most remote place she could find to deal with the reemergence of the man, Calvin, who assaulted her as a child. To make matters worse, another girl he assaulted, Linzie, has now released a memoir that everyone is talking about. Birdie meet someone on the ferry to Whidbey Island who offers to kill Calvin, and Birdie wonders if this is real. So, when Calvin is murdered soon after, Birdie reckons with what may be the consequences of her own actions. Told primarily through the viewpoint of Birdie, Linzie, and Calvin's mother Mary Beth, this is an interesting look into how assault can change your life, and the lives of those around you forever.
Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC of this book.
Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC of this book.
October 25, 2025
Thank you to Net Galley for providing an ARC for review.
A brilliant novel about women who were sexually abused as children by the same man, with a nimbly plotted mystery intertwined. A content warning at the end (which some readers should probably read before beginning) outlines the themes of "suffering, the commodification of pain, and the refusal to see it and name it in others."
The author's empathy for her characters allows readers a profound understanding of ongoing aftereffects of their traumas while honoring their strength and resilience. She presents the perpetrator's mother's inner life with equal sensitivity. The author also deserves kudos for showing how racism, sexism, classism and homophobia impact the characters' lives.
A brilliant novel about women who were sexually abused as children by the same man, with a nimbly plotted mystery intertwined. A content warning at the end (which some readers should probably read before beginning) outlines the themes of "suffering, the commodification of pain, and the refusal to see it and name it in others."
The author's empathy for her characters allows readers a profound understanding of ongoing aftereffects of their traumas while honoring their strength and resilience. She presents the perpetrator's mother's inner life with equal sensitivity. The author also deserves kudos for showing how racism, sexism, classism and homophobia impact the characters' lives.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Instant immersion (insert smiley faces with heart eyes here). LOVE THIS.
I am not one of those people who writes a synopsis of the book with my reviews unless it's going up alone, so there isn't one here - what follows is my experience and opinion alone:
I first became a fan of Madden when I read her autobio (which I also loved, and also thanks, Netgalley), but I drifted away from a lot of things social media for a while so I was unaware this was in the works. Imagine my glee and surprise when, after a few years had passed, Netgalley notified me that I would probably love this one.
Well, Netgalley was right on the money. Madden was a good writer to begin with as she told her own story but my god, how is this a FIRST novel??!!??
This is a story to fall right into and a joy to read even if it's very HARD to read at times (thanks for the content warning). Madden does not shy away from the hard stuff, thankfully, but she makes her players tough, vulnerable, queer, questionably stable and astute (my kind of people, basically).
The way she paints people makes them visible right down to a hair on a chin. You get invested, you see what they see, feel what they feel, and think what they think without it falling into saccharine terribleness . Dare I say it but I think this is a bit of a masterpiece and might be one of the best books I have read in quite a while. Well done, T Kira Madden.
I am not one of those people who writes a synopsis of the book with my reviews unless it's going up alone, so there isn't one here - what follows is my experience and opinion alone:
I first became a fan of Madden when I read her autobio (which I also loved, and also thanks, Netgalley), but I drifted away from a lot of things social media for a while so I was unaware this was in the works. Imagine my glee and surprise when, after a few years had passed, Netgalley notified me that I would probably love this one.
Well, Netgalley was right on the money. Madden was a good writer to begin with as she told her own story but my god, how is this a FIRST novel??!!??
This is a story to fall right into and a joy to read even if it's very HARD to read at times (thanks for the content warning). Madden does not shy away from the hard stuff, thankfully, but she makes her players tough, vulnerable, queer, questionably stable and astute (my kind of people, basically).
The way she paints people makes them visible right down to a hair on a chin. You get invested, you see what they see, feel what they feel, and think what they think without it falling into saccharine terribleness . Dare I say it but I think this is a bit of a masterpiece and might be one of the best books I have read in quite a while. Well done, T Kira Madden.
November 24, 2025
4 stars--I really liked it. I was interested in this book because of the setting on Whidbey Island, and was pleased to discover good writing and deep characterization. This is a character-driven book, documenting the cascading destruction a single predator can have on those around him (his victims, his family, his victims' families, and so on).
It's a tough read, but important, and each character is rendered with heartbreaking clarity.
I didn't care for the last 30% or so, where the voice changes to an omniscient narrator, but I understand why this broad overview was necessary.
I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!
It's a tough read, but important, and each character is rendered with heartbreaking clarity.
I didn't care for the last 30% or so, where the voice changes to an omniscient narrator, but I understand why this broad overview was necessary.
I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!
December 7, 2025
This is a heavy book dealing with childhood sexual abuse and its aftermath. The whole story centers on that, and there’s a lot of explicit detail, so it’s definitely not for everyone.
Aside from the subject matter, I also just didn’t enjoy reading it. The style kept pulling me out of the story. There are no quotation marks, the punctuation is inconsistent, and the structure feels loose. That could be an intentional choice, or it could be something that gets cleaned up in the final edit since this was an ARC, but either way it made it hard for me to stay focused.
Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the advance copy.
Aside from the subject matter, I also just didn’t enjoy reading it. The style kept pulling me out of the story. There are no quotation marks, the punctuation is inconsistent, and the structure feels loose. That could be an intentional choice, or it could be something that gets cleaned up in the final edit since this was an ARC, but either way it made it hard for me to stay focused.
Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the advance copy.
Want to read
October 31, 2025A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
Okay my disappointment is a little bit my fault here. Madden’s 2019 memoir is my favorite book ever and the book that made me recognize prose as a word and sentence-level art form. I was so thrilled to win an ARC of “Whidbey” in a Goodreads giveaway so of course I came in with super high expectations… only to end up being disappointed by a book that is, well, good but not great.
While reading, there certainly wasn’t any chapter I could really point to and be like, oh I didn’t like this. Madden’s prose is as beautiful and perfect as ever. Nearly any random extract or chapter would be a five-star flash fiction piece for me. I loved the writing style. I loved the dialogue. I thought it was sharp and acerbic
But the overall plot was just so… inert to me. “Whidbey” never felt equal to the sum of its parts because it just didn’t feel well-constructed as a novel. It never felt like the smaller pieces were adding up to a bigger whole.
Despite the blurb calling this book a “complex whodunit,” this did not feel like a whodunit at all, let alone a complex one. For the entire first 75% of this book, there are literally NO reasonable candidates for Calvin’s killer unless you put a lot of stock in rando Rich Amani or hearsay from background characters. You can’t just be like, oh it’s unreliable first person/close third narrators, that’s why there were no clues, because this makes for a really bad murder mystery!!
I would be fine with the book sort of falling flat on that murder mystery aspect if the overall plot was compelling in other areas but it WASN’T! The blurb claims Calvin’s death “sends each woman on a desperate search for answers.” …It doesn’t. Only his mom Mary-Beth does anything and even then it’s largely ineffective. And that… kind of makes it boring. Our three main characters (Birdie, Mary-Beth, and Linzie) literally don’t really do anything for most of the book.
I fully thought that everyone was going to end up meeting in Florida at some point or cross paths in some way. But no, the three main women never meet. Nobody solves anything about the mystery behind Calvin’s death or even really tries to. Nobody calls out Mary-Beth for enabling Calvin, her rapist son! (Which I thought was what would’ve happened if Birdie or Linzie had ever met her on page.)
I also don’t understand why Mary-Beth’s chapters were two weeks ahead of Birdie and Linzie’s chapters. Mary-Beth finds out Calvin dies right at the start of the book and Birdie and Linzie don’t find out until a third of the way through the book. I guess it’s meant to be the reader can suss out more clues or whatever but those as I said before… weren’t really given. It all felt like a puzzle film that refuses to show you the pieces!! I really think Mary-Beth should’ve begun at the same point in time as Birdie and Linzie so that we could’ve cut down on the repetitive grief descriptions and repetitive flat “oh my son!” descriptions (we get it, she loves her child molester son) and instead actually got to see Mary-Beth’s interactions with a living Calvin and seen Calvin as a character. Perhaps actual foreshadowing of his impending murder…
The problem with MB is that she doesn’t ever seem to have a real understanding of who her son really was – not as an abuser, which is fine because that is clearly how her character is meant to be depicted but like, as a PERSON. As an ADULT. So when we only see Calvin via her flashback memories, he too comes off as just a flat caricature. But isn’t one of the points of this book that monsters are people too and we have to accept it is people who do monstrous things??? Because only people can be held accountable for monstrous acts and if you’ll only believe victims of a “perfect perpetrator,” then you won’t believe anyone at all…
Honestly, I wish we had at least gotten more of a “villain edit” with Mary-Beth’s chapters. This is a person who has made excuses for a child rapist for years! We should SEE that vehement self-denial, that vitriol pointed outward. She was really way too sympathetic…
I really liked Birdie’s chapters, although with the novel fully over I honestly don’t know anymore why she’s on Whidbey the WHOLE time and why the book itself is called Whidbey when Whidbey has nothing to do with the other characters and any of the rest of the book 😭😭. For most of the book Birdie feels like the “main” character of the ensemble cast, but the odd structuring and the fact she’s totally absent from all the Florida action kind of leaves her with like… not much to do in the end. But anyways, Birdie is the only one with first person chapters and I did like them, I thought her voice was smart and funny. Her girlfriend Trace was very sweet… ngl that one strap on scene was kinda 👀🥵
Ah, now Linzie. Linzie’s POV only comes in about a third of the book, and before then we only hear her voice through excerpts of her memoir (which later turns out to be ghostwritten). I can understand thematically why Madden did the twist of having it be ghostwritten – a comment on the commodification of suffering and victim’s stories, literally. BUT… I had LIKED the sly voice of that memoir. I liked picturing Linzie as someone with a real spine, a real drive to get something out of what happened to her. Someone who thinks, “hey, if I’m going to be exploited anyway, I may as well be the one profiting.” I thought she was going to be more of a foil to Birdie, who calls herself passive and is endlessly frustrated by it. (And yeah I thought they would end up meeting and teaming up and somehow running into MB…)
Instead we got… this Linzie. Who is very, very passive and seemingly constantly dissociating / derealized (that was a BIG vibe with Linzie). Her life was just so sad. She doesn’t even have a hot girlfriend like Birdie. She is completely alone! Just lives a sad life in her dad’s literal garage, being used by him and Yale the ghostwriter. I DID think Linzie was characterized well, and out of all the characters I REALLY felt for her the most (especially at the end!! With that horrific reveal that explains why she is the way she is oh my god.) But I didn’t feel that was the kind of character we were being set up to logically expect as the third POV in the book. Because I thought Birdie was already meant to represent that sort of “receding from the world” response to trauma and Linzie’s apparent “you can hurt me but I’ll laugh my way to the bank” attitude was supposed to be a counterpoint to that. I thought her “My Turn” excerpts and the hate MB and Birdie have towards its author were supposed to prime the audience to dislike Linzie too only to realize when we read her chapters that maybe she might be a grifter and maybe she unethically represented Birdie’s story but obviously all that glitters is not gold. And we would see how Linzie is also a victim and is also a survivor. And perhaps we would see how she had to bend her own story to make it marketable for the media landscape etc etc. I think that would’ve been an interesting and nuanced POV that would have really rounded out the trio of perspectives in “Whidbey.”
It’s not ALWAYS good to be trying to subvert your reader’s expectations at every turn 😭😭. And speaking of subverted expectations…
So parts 1 and 2 of this novel (about the first 75%) are alternating first person chapters (Birdie) and close third person chapters (Mary-Beth, then later Linzie). But Part 3, the final 25%, gives us an omniscient narrator who reveals secrets and things and switches between the three previous POV characters AND a bunch of side characters.
I know it was a clever hat trick from Madden to upturn the tables and *subvert expectations* with the narration switch up (plus I’m sure it was a thematic choice with regards to this story’s whole thing about “who gets to own a story, especially one of suffering”). But I just feel like this book would’ve been better and more even without the omniscient narrator!!! That way all the info from this last section could actually be interweaved into the earlier character POVs so that when the situation behind Calvin’s death is finally revealed it’s something the novel has actually built up to! Because the stuff that was revealed in part 3 WAS interesting stuff and it made sense and it recontextualized things. But it barely got time to breathe because it was all crammed in at the end to be clever. This book held its cards wayyyy to close to its chest.
Ugh and the other problem with the omniscient narrator section is that it’s just… too neat. It wraps up everything TOO nicely, and tells us all this stuff about how everything will be great now that the rapist is dead and like yeah obvs but also I thought it was meant to be more complex than that. I thought this book began with the premise of Calvin’s murder *in order to* question that. And lowkey why is Mary Beth also getting a cathartic happy-ish ending when she’s spent most of her adult life enabling her rapist son?? Excuse me?? Just cause she’s a woman too?? Boo, that shit isn’t feminism hold her accountable for her own actions. The narrative acts like we’re meant to be happy for her. Um I’m NOT.
Also, seeing the omniscient narrator part suddenly shift into thriller high gear after the entire rest of the novel had been on such a grounded literary realist register was jarring and too quick to really sink in. Cause we really rushed through all those reveals!! There wasn’t much time for it to sink in emotionally, *especially* stuff happening with characters we barely knew before, like Genie and Nicola (MB’s nieces) who I SO wish we had gotten to know better earlier in the story. Heck, they should’ve had their own POV chapter instead of the listicle we get about them in the omniscient narrator section (which was clever, but still, like, not enough for me to really KNOW these girls at the end of a 364-page book?).
I fully feel like the first, much slower-paced 75% would’ve been helped by having the twists and info from the rushed last 25% interspersed throughout. Alternatively, the book should’ve just been split in two and the omniscient narrator should’ve taken over at the halfway point to really round out the cast there and kick the whole whodunit thing into high gear there…
I think this book is definitely going to make a really big splash when it comes out next year. But unfortunately it didn’t quite cut it for me. It was still a good book full of GREAT prose though, and I’m glad I read it.
Also, I hope everyone reads Madden’s essay “The Feels of Love” (which appears in her 2019 memoir). It is brilliant and astonishingly empathetic and covers similar ground to “Whidbey” as it is also about surviving childhood sexual assault.
Link to the original version of the essay published in Guernica:
https://www.guernicamag.com/the-feels...
While reading, there certainly wasn’t any chapter I could really point to and be like, oh I didn’t like this. Madden’s prose is as beautiful and perfect as ever. Nearly any random extract or chapter would be a five-star flash fiction piece for me. I loved the writing style. I loved the dialogue. I thought it was sharp and acerbic
But the overall plot was just so… inert to me. “Whidbey” never felt equal to the sum of its parts because it just didn’t feel well-constructed as a novel. It never felt like the smaller pieces were adding up to a bigger whole.
Despite the blurb calling this book a “complex whodunit,” this did not feel like a whodunit at all, let alone a complex one. For the entire first 75% of this book, there are literally NO reasonable candidates for Calvin’s killer unless you put a lot of stock in rando Rich Amani or hearsay from background characters. You can’t just be like, oh it’s unreliable first person/close third narrators, that’s why there were no clues, because this makes for a really bad murder mystery!!
I would be fine with the book sort of falling flat on that murder mystery aspect if the overall plot was compelling in other areas but it WASN’T! The blurb claims Calvin’s death “sends each woman on a desperate search for answers.” …It doesn’t. Only his mom Mary-Beth does anything and even then it’s largely ineffective. And that… kind of makes it boring. Our three main characters (Birdie, Mary-Beth, and Linzie) literally don’t really do anything for most of the book.
I fully thought that everyone was going to end up meeting in Florida at some point or cross paths in some way. But no, the three main women never meet. Nobody solves anything about the mystery behind Calvin’s death or even really tries to. Nobody calls out Mary-Beth for enabling Calvin, her rapist son! (Which I thought was what would’ve happened if Birdie or Linzie had ever met her on page.)
I also don’t understand why Mary-Beth’s chapters were two weeks ahead of Birdie and Linzie’s chapters. Mary-Beth finds out Calvin dies right at the start of the book and Birdie and Linzie don’t find out until a third of the way through the book. I guess it’s meant to be the reader can suss out more clues or whatever but those as I said before… weren’t really given. It all felt like a puzzle film that refuses to show you the pieces!! I really think Mary-Beth should’ve begun at the same point in time as Birdie and Linzie so that we could’ve cut down on the repetitive grief descriptions and repetitive flat “oh my son!” descriptions (we get it, she loves her child molester son) and instead actually got to see Mary-Beth’s interactions with a living Calvin and seen Calvin as a character. Perhaps actual foreshadowing of his impending murder…
The problem with MB is that she doesn’t ever seem to have a real understanding of who her son really was – not as an abuser, which is fine because that is clearly how her character is meant to be depicted but like, as a PERSON. As an ADULT. So when we only see Calvin via her flashback memories, he too comes off as just a flat caricature. But isn’t one of the points of this book that monsters are people too and we have to accept it is people who do monstrous things??? Because only people can be held accountable for monstrous acts and if you’ll only believe victims of a “perfect perpetrator,” then you won’t believe anyone at all…
Honestly, I wish we had at least gotten more of a “villain edit” with Mary-Beth’s chapters. This is a person who has made excuses for a child rapist for years! We should SEE that vehement self-denial, that vitriol pointed outward. She was really way too sympathetic…
I really liked Birdie’s chapters, although with the novel fully over I honestly don’t know anymore why she’s on Whidbey the WHOLE time and why the book itself is called Whidbey when Whidbey has nothing to do with the other characters and any of the rest of the book 😭😭. For most of the book Birdie feels like the “main” character of the ensemble cast, but the odd structuring and the fact she’s totally absent from all the Florida action kind of leaves her with like… not much to do in the end. But anyways, Birdie is the only one with first person chapters and I did like them, I thought her voice was smart and funny. Her girlfriend Trace was very sweet… ngl that one strap on scene was kinda 👀🥵
Ah, now Linzie. Linzie’s POV only comes in about a third of the book, and before then we only hear her voice through excerpts of her memoir (which later turns out to be ghostwritten). I can understand thematically why Madden did the twist of having it be ghostwritten – a comment on the commodification of suffering and victim’s stories, literally. BUT… I had LIKED the sly voice of that memoir. I liked picturing Linzie as someone with a real spine, a real drive to get something out of what happened to her. Someone who thinks, “hey, if I’m going to be exploited anyway, I may as well be the one profiting.” I thought she was going to be more of a foil to Birdie, who calls herself passive and is endlessly frustrated by it. (And yeah I thought they would end up meeting and teaming up and somehow running into MB…)
Instead we got… this Linzie. Who is very, very passive and seemingly constantly dissociating / derealized (that was a BIG vibe with Linzie). Her life was just so sad. She doesn’t even have a hot girlfriend like Birdie. She is completely alone! Just lives a sad life in her dad’s literal garage, being used by him and Yale the ghostwriter. I DID think Linzie was characterized well, and out of all the characters I REALLY felt for her the most (especially at the end!! With that horrific reveal that explains why she is the way she is oh my god.) But I didn’t feel that was the kind of character we were being set up to logically expect as the third POV in the book. Because I thought Birdie was already meant to represent that sort of “receding from the world” response to trauma and Linzie’s apparent “you can hurt me but I’ll laugh my way to the bank” attitude was supposed to be a counterpoint to that. I thought her “My Turn” excerpts and the hate MB and Birdie have towards its author were supposed to prime the audience to dislike Linzie too only to realize when we read her chapters that maybe she might be a grifter and maybe she unethically represented Birdie’s story but obviously all that glitters is not gold. And we would see how Linzie is also a victim and is also a survivor. And perhaps we would see how she had to bend her own story to make it marketable for the media landscape etc etc. I think that would’ve been an interesting and nuanced POV that would have really rounded out the trio of perspectives in “Whidbey.”
It’s not ALWAYS good to be trying to subvert your reader’s expectations at every turn 😭😭. And speaking of subverted expectations…
So parts 1 and 2 of this novel (about the first 75%) are alternating first person chapters (Birdie) and close third person chapters (Mary-Beth, then later Linzie). But Part 3, the final 25%, gives us an omniscient narrator who reveals secrets and things and switches between the three previous POV characters AND a bunch of side characters.
I know it was a clever hat trick from Madden to upturn the tables and *subvert expectations* with the narration switch up (plus I’m sure it was a thematic choice with regards to this story’s whole thing about “who gets to own a story, especially one of suffering”). But I just feel like this book would’ve been better and more even without the omniscient narrator!!! That way all the info from this last section could actually be interweaved into the earlier character POVs so that when the situation behind Calvin’s death is finally revealed it’s something the novel has actually built up to! Because the stuff that was revealed in part 3 WAS interesting stuff and it made sense and it recontextualized things. But it barely got time to breathe because it was all crammed in at the end to be clever. This book held its cards wayyyy to close to its chest.
Ugh and the other problem with the omniscient narrator section is that it’s just… too neat. It wraps up everything TOO nicely, and tells us all this stuff about how everything will be great now that the rapist is dead and like yeah obvs but also I thought it was meant to be more complex than that. I thought this book began with the premise of Calvin’s murder *in order to* question that. And lowkey why is Mary Beth also getting a cathartic happy-ish ending when she’s spent most of her adult life enabling her rapist son?? Excuse me?? Just cause she’s a woman too?? Boo, that shit isn’t feminism hold her accountable for her own actions. The narrative acts like we’re meant to be happy for her. Um I’m NOT.
Also, seeing the omniscient narrator part suddenly shift into thriller high gear after the entire rest of the novel had been on such a grounded literary realist register was jarring and too quick to really sink in. Cause we really rushed through all those reveals!! There wasn’t much time for it to sink in emotionally, *especially* stuff happening with characters we barely knew before, like Genie and Nicola (MB’s nieces) who I SO wish we had gotten to know better earlier in the story. Heck, they should’ve had their own POV chapter instead of the listicle we get about them in the omniscient narrator section (which was clever, but still, like, not enough for me to really KNOW these girls at the end of a 364-page book?).
I fully feel like the first, much slower-paced 75% would’ve been helped by having the twists and info from the rushed last 25% interspersed throughout. Alternatively, the book should’ve just been split in two and the omniscient narrator should’ve taken over at the halfway point to really round out the cast there and kick the whole whodunit thing into high gear there…
I think this book is definitely going to make a really big splash when it comes out next year. But unfortunately it didn’t quite cut it for me. It was still a good book full of GREAT prose though, and I’m glad I read it.
Also, I hope everyone reads Madden’s essay “The Feels of Love” (which appears in her 2019 memoir). It is brilliant and astonishingly empathetic and covers similar ground to “Whidbey” as it is also about surviving childhood sexual assault.
Link to the original version of the essay published in Guernica:
https://www.guernicamag.com/the-feels...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 22, 2025
3.5 stars
Whidbey is an ambitious debut novel, and I was impressed by Madden’s sensitivity and thoughtful prose. Although there is a mystery at play, Whidbey reads much more as literary fiction than a thriller. Madden is interested in exploring her different characters’ psyches and probes questions of how and why rather than guilty or innocent.
I found the third and final section of the novel a bit unfocused; I would have preferred more structure in this section, especially because the preceding sections were so tautly written and edited. There is also a lot of plot that unfolds in this last section, and I felt that some reveals were a bit rushed. While so much of the novel examines emotional states and the impact of trauma, these topics are brushed over much more quickly in this last section.
The tone and atmosphere of Whidbey stuck with me even when I put the book down, and I’ll be looking forward to Madden’s next work.
I received a free ARC from Mariner Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Whidbey is an ambitious debut novel, and I was impressed by Madden’s sensitivity and thoughtful prose. Although there is a mystery at play, Whidbey reads much more as literary fiction than a thriller. Madden is interested in exploring her different characters’ psyches and probes questions of how and why rather than guilty or innocent.
I found the third and final section of the novel a bit unfocused; I would have preferred more structure in this section, especially because the preceding sections were so tautly written and edited. There is also a lot of plot that unfolds in this last section, and I felt that some reveals were a bit rushed. While so much of the novel examines emotional states and the impact of trauma, these topics are brushed over much more quickly in this last section.
The tone and atmosphere of Whidbey stuck with me even when I put the book down, and I’ll be looking forward to Madden’s next work.
I received a free ARC from Mariner Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
November 10, 2025
*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.*
Whidbey starts with Birdie Chang who has gone to stay on Whidbey Island for some respite. Birdie is on the ferry to the Island when she meets a stranger and she ends up telling him about her sexual abuse as a child and how she wants to kill her abuser. The stranger says he will murder her abuser for her so Birdie gives him a name. The book then starts following Mary-Beth who gets a phone call from the police that her only son has been murdered. Mary-Beth wants to find her son’s killer and feels like nobody is taking her concerns seriously. The book also follows Linzie who is a former reality star and another victim of the same man.
This book discusses paedophilia and various types of CSA, it is a heavy book and I think readers should take into account potential triggers before starting this. That said, this book was absolutely amazing and this author is extremely talented. The topics discussed in this book are done with incredible care and so much nuance. I found it easy to emphasise with Birdie, Mary-Beth and Linzie who are all very different characters. I think often when we imagine a pedophile it tends to be a stereotype of an older man with really young children but this book showed how abuse is not as clear cut.
This story involves different power dynamics and shows how everyone can be impacted from this type of abuse. Mary-Beth is the mother of an abuser and at first it was really hard to care about her as a character because she believes her son to be innocent. I found her character to be very complex. I really enjoyed this novel and I think it’s a very powerful story. This book reminded me of Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane not in the content of the story but because of the grittiness of the characters. This is not an easy novel to read due to the content but it is an extremely timely novel and very important. I will be recommending this and I really appreciate how this portrays such a complex portrait of abuse.
Whidbey starts with Birdie Chang who has gone to stay on Whidbey Island for some respite. Birdie is on the ferry to the Island when she meets a stranger and she ends up telling him about her sexual abuse as a child and how she wants to kill her abuser. The stranger says he will murder her abuser for her so Birdie gives him a name. The book then starts following Mary-Beth who gets a phone call from the police that her only son has been murdered. Mary-Beth wants to find her son’s killer and feels like nobody is taking her concerns seriously. The book also follows Linzie who is a former reality star and another victim of the same man.
This book discusses paedophilia and various types of CSA, it is a heavy book and I think readers should take into account potential triggers before starting this. That said, this book was absolutely amazing and this author is extremely talented. The topics discussed in this book are done with incredible care and so much nuance. I found it easy to emphasise with Birdie, Mary-Beth and Linzie who are all very different characters. I think often when we imagine a pedophile it tends to be a stereotype of an older man with really young children but this book showed how abuse is not as clear cut.
This story involves different power dynamics and shows how everyone can be impacted from this type of abuse. Mary-Beth is the mother of an abuser and at first it was really hard to care about her as a character because she believes her son to be innocent. I found her character to be very complex. I really enjoyed this novel and I think it’s a very powerful story. This book reminded me of Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane not in the content of the story but because of the grittiness of the characters. This is not an easy novel to read due to the content but it is an extremely timely novel and very important. I will be recommending this and I really appreciate how this portrays such a complex portrait of abuse.
November 25, 2025
What a book! I was not prepared for the scope of this book, all the places it would take me. T Kira Madden is a phenomenal writer, and she’s gifted readers an unforgettable book. Full of twists you’ll never see coming, Madden’s microscopic attention to detail amazes. Her sentences are impeccable, gorgeous, beautifully crafted.. Whidbey isn’t always an easy read, but it’s an unforgettable one.
November 18, 2025
This was one of the best books I've read all year, hands down. It goes in so many different directions that you have no clue what the next page holds. Something that makes a good story to me is when you think about it when you aren't reading it and you can't wait to pick it back up and Whidbey was that book for me!
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC
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