A BIRD IN THE AIR MEANS WE CAN STILL BREATHE

“Two city girls with island roots,” Jamaican Electra and Trinidadian Hyacinth, are best friends whose voices serve as the book’s chorus, threading together individual stories and adding context, reflection, and direction. Their interspersed conversations are readers’ touchpoints for poems (in varied forms, including haiku and acrostic) and prose (which encompasses a letter, email, and a to-do list). Together the entries evoke the experiences of teens in New York City who are searching for love, hope, community, and liberation amid the fear and uncertainty of the pandemic. Browne’s use of varied formats and content offers a fresh and incisive look at the impact of the pandemic on young people’s lives as they dated, worked, attended school, and grew up while their world shut down around them. Grief becomes a palpable presence, as heightened responsibilities and innumerable losses demand from teens levels of grace, honesty, and care that many adults bowed under. The characters’ voices feel as authentic as if they were next to you—or, maybe, six feet away—close enough to feel the wrenching pain of hoping a grandmother lives long enough for a vaccine to be available, close enough to understand the ecstasy of a first kiss after months with no physical contact.