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Wildflower #3

The Way Back Home

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Music sensation Bird Barrett is hitting the road, headlining her first national tour after the launch of her second album. Singing to sold-out crowds can mess with a girl's sense of perspective though. Luckily Bird has her older brother Dylan and her best friend Stella along for the ride to keep her grounded.

When Dylan and Stella pair off as more than friends, Bird starts feeling left behind and throws herself completely into her performances, cover shoots, and high-profile interviews. But the more she tries to distract herself with her career, the further she pushes everyone away--including her longtime crush, Adam Dean, who joined the tour as her opener. Before long all the pressure becomes too much for Bird on her own.

In a life like this one, a country girl needs her family and friends--and maybe an old flame--most of all.

327 pages, Hardcover

First published July 19, 2016

7 people are currently reading
327 people want to read

About the author

Alecia Whitaker

4 books112 followers
Alecia Whitaker grew up with a big imagination on a small farm in Kentucky, which was worlds away from where she currently resides in fast-paced New York City. She knows more about cows, tobacco, frog gigging, and carpentry than the average girl, and she applies the work ethic and common sense she learned from her southern upbringing to the way she now navigates her career and family life in the big city.

Although she graduated from the University of Kentucky with a BFA in Theatre and a BS in Advertising, she's always been a writer. She won the Soil Conservation Essay contest in the 4th grade, was selected as a Governor's School for the Arts student in Creative Writing in the 10th grade, and then in college, she was a Top Ten Finalist in the US Southeast Region for a Ten Minute Playwriting competition at James Madison University.

Since then, she has been in loads of commercials, as well as on stage in a few small theatrical productions and poetry slams. She appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show numerous times, The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, and was a contestant on Deal Or No Deal. She is currently the host of a twice weekly web show called The Baby Book, which chronicles her real life experiences of being a mom in New York City.

Her personal essays have been published in the anthology Blink: Fiction in the Blink of an Eye and several times in Underwired Magazine. She co-wrote the popular one act play Becoming Woman with a grant from The Kentucky Foundation for Women. The Queen of Kentucky is her first novel and proudest artistic accomplishment.

Now living in New York City with her husband and son, she is amused at how often her big imagination takes her back to a simpler life in Kentucky.

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5 stars
86 (41%)
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80 (38%)
3 stars
32 (15%)
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
Profile Image for Makenna.
13 reviews20 followers
August 25, 2016
Such a great book to end a great series!!
12 reviews
January 23, 2020
The Way Back Home is a realistic fiction novel by Alecia Whitaker and the third book in the Wildflower series. The story follows Bird Barrett and her time headlining her own tour. Bird is now 18 years old and has come a long way from playing honkey-tonks and dive bars in her family band. She is now headlining her own tour on a huge bus with her best friend Stella and her brother Dylan. Soon, though, Bird begins to feel like a third wheel when Dylan and Stella become “more than friends”. Luckily, her old friend and long-time crush Adam Dean joins the tour as her opener.

As Bird begins to spend more time with Adam, she begins to realize that the old spark never went away. She knows that they both feel the same way, but after the way things ended last time, she is worried about her heart. So, Bird decides to “go hard” on this tour scheduling tons of cover-shoots and high-profile interviews and giving everything she has in all of her performances to distract her from her relationships.

But, when all of the performances and hate from the media prove to be too much, Bird begins to push everyone she loves away, including Adam. Soon, the exhaustion causes her to break down and she is forced to take time off of the tour to find her footing. After she finally gets back on track, Bird has to face her problems and repair her relationships, but has she pushed everyone too far? To have a life like her’s, Bird needs her friends, and without them, she finally realizes that other people may not have the relationships she has taken for granted for so long.

My favorite part was at the end of the book when Bird plays a song with her family like she used to in the Barrett Family Band. This part circles back to where they started in that small RV traveling around the country, playing in small bars and hotels and it shows how much things have changed since then. Also during this part, Bird welcomes Adam into the family. She shows him that he is not alone by welcoming him onto the stage during her family’s performance. She says, “it feels like a member of our family is missing.” This shows how much she wants him to feel like he is a part of their family because his family was never really there for him. This part also reminded me of the first book when they all played together before Bird was discovered. Going back to the beginning made for a great end to the story.

I would recommend this book to anyone who really stressed out or feels like they are alone. It covers repairing relationships and taking care of yourself when you really need it. I would also recommend this book to people struggling with living the “Hollywood Life” in the public eye. It also covers looking past the bad publicity and not worrying about what the public thinks of you. Instead, taking care of the relationships you have with the people who know the real you.
Profile Image for Celeste_pewter.
593 reviews171 followers
August 13, 2016
Ok. Like I said for my review of Sing earlier in the year, sometimes you just want to read an entertaining book about a famous singer and all of the associated ups and downs that come with being in the spotlight. The Way Back Home is absolutely that book.

Alecia Whitaker brings us back into country singer Bird Barrett's world, where she's about to go on her first national tour. Her second album is skyrocketing in the charts, and Bird decides to bring along brother Dylan and best friend Stella to help out, as she hits stages across the country.

However, romance, new tour mates and some publicity snafus, help ensure that this is a tour that Bird isn't likely to forget...

It was a little surreal reading The Way Back Home, because it just happened to be released during the middle of the Taylor Swift/Kim Kardashian snapchat storm. And as I've always seen Bird as the fictional equivalent to Taylor, it felt a little meta.

But oddly enough, that meta aspect actually helped me empathize with Taylor, while I was joining Bird on her journey. Because Whitaker does a fantastic job of breaking down the stressors that come with being a skyrocketing success, and the various personal and professional struggles that come with said success.

Bird vacillates between enjoying the perks of her fame - her fans; the VIP access that she gets to clubs - but Whitaker also increasingly stresses the fact that Bird's life is also no longer her own. Her behavior needs to be moderated and contained each and every time she is in public, and Whitaker is so good at emphasizing how claustrophobic that type of expectation can feel. This is especially true, when Dylan and Stella begin dating publicly, and Bird realizes that she doesn't have the same luxury.

Alongside that claustrophia, is the underlying emphasis on the idea that the narrative of stars like Bird can be skewed for controversy and shock value. The latter half of the book deals with the stressors of public expectation and the subsequent fallout when that expectation isn't met, and Whitaker skillfully shows how straining it can be to have society place so much expectation on a single individual.

There's a specific section where Bird more or less hits her breaking point, and I wanted to stand up and cheer when Bird makes the life-saving decision to put her needs above everyone else's. Whitaker does a fantastic job of explaining why that isn't a selfish decision, and how asking for self-care is imperative. It's such an important lesson for young readers to learn, and I applaud Whitaker for going there.

While the book does have an adorable romance with familiar face Adam Dean, I almost felt like it was secondary to Bird's overall journey. There was so much emphasis on Bird's growth and recognition of her new status as a role model and a musical symbol, that all of her interactions with Adam seemed to just (re)emphasize that fact.

All in all, it seems fitting that as the third and final book in the trilogy, this is the book where Bird learns how to deal with her fame and personal life, in a way that ensures a successful career for years to come. So even though readers may not meet up with Bird again, it's not difficult to imagine her still out there, with a music catalogue that will span the ages.

Final verdict:

The Way Back Home is a heartwarming delight, and a perfect close to the Wildflower series. Bird Barrett has come full circle from burgeoning young talent to national star, while also learning many life lessons along the way.

Highly recommend, full stop.
Profile Image for Cindy Mitchell *Kiss the Book*.
6,033 reviews219 followers
March 2, 2018
Whitaker, Alecia The Way Back Home (Wildflower, #3), 324 pgs. Poppy, 2016. $17.99 Content: Language: PG-13 (11 swears); Mature Content: PG-13; Violence: G.

Bird is at the top of her country singing career. She has found a balance between her own voice and what her record label expects from her. While on tour she is surprised to have her old love interest, Adam, come back into her life and she struggles with all the demands of being a star.

This is the final book in the Wildflowers trilogy and it has been fun following Bird on her road to stardom. I liked Bird and felt like she was trying to do the right thing while figuring out who she really was. The mature content is underage drinking and alcoholism.

MS, HS – ADVISABLE. Reviewer, C. Peterson.
http://kissthebook.blogspot.com/2018/...
Profile Image for Alexandra.
398 reviews5 followers
September 4, 2021
This was a really good conclusion to the ‘Wildflower’ series. While my favourite will always be the first book, this is my second favourite. I like how this book explored Bird’s fame, the pressure to be perfect, to be always on and being so young yet having people rely on you for a job and how people are just waiting for you to mess up and fail and relishing in what seems to be your downfall and it all happening at such a young age. I also like the romance better in this.

However, I was sad to see the family dynamics take a bit of a back seat again, her parents only showed up every now and then and it was only to really show disappointment in some of Bird’s choices rather than the supportive parents we saw in the first book.

All in all, I really enjoyed the series, it was a quick, sweet read and I can see myself re-reading this series as a pick me up!
Profile Image for Kayla Hicks.
Author 34 books55 followers
December 23, 2024
Bird is headlining her very own tour for the first time and gets to plan it too. Knowing this is a huge step in her career, she can't fight off the sadness of losing Kai but knows it is for the best.

But after her opening band for her tour leaves the tour, she is able to ask Adam, her first crush and almost love to be her opener.

What she didn't anticipate is her feelings that are still present for Adam. Or that this tour and her rising fame would be over encompassing, leaving her feeling drained.

I loved this whole series and honestly I could have read book after book about Bird Barret. Such a wonderful cast of characters, as well as relatable.
Profile Image for Kristen.
411 reviews
July 26, 2023
1.5
Slightly less frivolous than the second book, but Bird was more whiny and irritating in this one too. These last two books really dragged the story out for no real reason but added drama. A few extra chapters at the end of book one really would have sufficed. Particularly since a large part of the interest in the first book involves Adam. By the end of the series, I largely didn't care about him any longer.
Profile Image for Ashley.
1,752 reviews33 followers
January 1, 2018
I feel like it took a bit for me to get into this, though that could be because I didn't really have much time to sit and just power through it. But when I did get a chance to sit and read, I quite liked it. And the last quarter of the book was really enjoyable and I really hope there'll be a fourth book, because I want to read more about Bird!!!
4,011 reviews10 followers
October 29, 2022
I was a little sad to see The Way Back Home end as I enjoyed Bird’s journey. I felt that Bird really came into her own in this book. I liked how she learned how to deal with the business of being Bird Barrett – those were my favorite parts. It’s a great life, but there’s a lot of hard work involved.
9 reviews
November 14, 2017
The Way Back Home is the third book in a series called Wildflower. It's a really happy, uplifting book about a girl named Bird Barrett becomes a famous folk singer and goes on tour. I would definitely recommend this series.
Profile Image for Stephanie Chambers.
1,025 reviews14 followers
July 13, 2018
The third book in the bird series. Still super cute.
But her trying to be a party girl and grown up doesn’t play well here. She still feels so young! But I love her family and her friendships. She is genuinely a good person and I love how it influences her writing. I love to see that process.
Profile Image for Cielo.
22 reviews
May 22, 2021
this book was so boring for me. it put me in a reading slump and even ended up on my DNF list. :(
Profile Image for reenie.
584 reviews104 followers
September 21, 2017
I will admit that I wasn't the biggest fan of Wildflower and the Road to You, finding the characters underdeveloped and cliched for a YA novel. However, the Way Back Home redeemed the series and was my favorite book of the trilogy. Alecia did a beautiful job wrapping up all the loose ends created by the series, showing different sides of less than memorable characters and giving Bird the romance she deserved. I wasn't originally on Team Adam because I thought he was a player, but I was swooning at every scene he was in. There was something so genuine and raw about Adam's character that made him endearing. The only reason I didn't give The Way Back Home five stars was the times that Bird lashed out or became jealous, but I thought Alecia accurately portrayed the media and the pros and cons of a celebrity's life. Our society chooses not to show the negative effects being in the spotlight can have on a person because, at the end of the day, a celebrity is a person who has their name well known. I really do think the characters have matured gracefully and grew into their skin.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Christina (A Reader of Fictions).
4,578 reviews1,760 followers
December 19, 2018
The final installment brings precisely what you would expect: the ship sailing and really everything sailing smoothly into the brilliant sunset.

The big conflict of The Way Back Home is that Bird’s best friend Stella gets together with her brother Dylan. Also, her feelings for Adam are back big time, and he’s opening for her (since conveniently her opener backed out at the very last minute and he’s just launching a single and debut album). Oh, and this one reporter wrote that Bird might not be the nicest human ever created, so that’s pretty traumatic for her. All the way through, Bird has the easiest, most convenient possible road to stardom and fame. Her relationships see minor tiffs and setbacks, but everything carries on just fine and barely changed.

Bird and her rival, whose name I’ve already forgotten, put their issues to bed and become tentative friends. This would be a really touching arc, if not for the fact that Bird basically saves her with her goodness and high-roadedness (totally a word). Of course her rival needs to go to rehab but Bird had one hangover and will never touch that devil alcohol again. Like, yeah, okay, we get it, Bird’s a saint.

The Adam/Bird romance is…nice. They’re both so aggressively nice and kind and loving. If it weren’t for the fact that both of them do actually love and support their family members and occasionally do stupid shit, I would hate them with the most fiery passion. Basically, they’d both be more interesting if they had more flaws, but they’re okay. They don’t light my fire though. Not one bit.

I still enjoyed reading The Way Back Home and, like the others, devoured it in one sitting. The series as a whole is very easy to read, but it doesn’t make a real impact, and I doubt it will be particularly memorable. It came to me at a time when I really wanted/needed the ultimate in fluff, so I very much am glad I found it now, but, despite the strength of Bird’s family’s characterization, the books are pretty weak. I probably liked them more than I should have, but eh.
Profile Image for Liralen.
3,353 reviews280 followers
October 1, 2016
The Way Back Home is book 3 (of, presumably, 3) in the Wildflower series, and since I read the first two a while back I spent much of my read of this one considering how it does, and doesn't, stand on its own as a book.

Bird changes over the series—a good thing, since a realistic character should change as she grows older, but also a complicated one. In Wildflower, Bird was the innocent, naïve girl on the cusp of stardom. By The Road to You, she was struggling to navigate what that stardom, that fame, meant. But in The Way Back Home, the book drops us right in—Bird's officially famous now, the kind of famous that comes with bodyguards and screaming fans, and she's also gotten a lot more comfortable with that fame. I suspect that if you dropped into this book without the background of the first two books, you'd miss most of that sweet, naïve sense. Oh, Bird's still naïve, but now that's much more of a liability, because, well, she's also sort of turned into a diva. One who doesn't really understand how the world works.

I like that a lot of what Bird faces comes back to her—that is, although other people don't always help matters, she ultimately finds that she has to take responsibility for her actions and her attitude. But I found it a little eyebrow-raising that she flips between two basic settings—sickly sweet and total diva. There's not a lot of middle ground.

So...it's fine? But I'm sorry to see Bird spend so much time on the 'me me me' side of things.
Profile Image for elaina.
40 reviews4 followers
March 10, 2021
Rating - 2.5 stars

I’m pretty torn about this book and the series altogether, it’s realistic yet so... odd at the same time?

I had high hopes in the beginning, I loved how Dylan was protective of Bird and even though they disagreed over many things, it was realistic and even though I loved his and Stella’s relationship it was so... pointless? It didn’t really contribute to the main plot.

Furthermore, when shit blew up in Bird’s face, everyone was so quick to forgive her and everything was hunky dory again in a matter of a few chapters?

Overall, I somewhat enjoyed this book but it’s not a memorable one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Celeste.
2,255 reviews
August 20, 2016
3.5 stars. This was a fun look at the rise to stardom and issues artists face in a Young Adult novel that is easy to recommend because it has a good main character and is clean.
Profile Image for Joss Grace.
53 reviews34 followers
May 12, 2023
I truly enjoyed this series. It was honest and heart wrenching and really really cute. Surprised that this isn't a popular YA trilogy tbh.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews

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