A total knockout ... Hoffs hits the familiar beats of romantic comedy with such panache and gusto, every note feels fresh. Preposterous plot twists are child’s play in the impulsive hands of Jane, whose fertile, febrile curiosity and pixie exuberance propel her into decisions ranging from the questionable to the catastrophic ... There is not a spare, bare sentence to be found. Instead, the pages are packed with wit and sly allusion and dialogue that strikes the ear just so, with song references that tended to skim pleasantly over my head, though I got the gist ... I had a literary quibble or two at the beginning, but by the time I’d torn through to the gratifying end — sucked into Jane’s world by force of storytelling, to say nothing of the pitch-perfect delivery of contemporary British idiom — I’d forgotten what they were. The odd cliché here, an extraneous adverb there. Who cares, when you’re having this much fun? This Bird Has Flown is the smart, ferocious rock-chick redemption romance you didn’t know you needed. My husband is devouring it now.
Clever and entertaining ... The slow burn of this relationship — how the intense curiosity of their infatuation blooms into the wonder of affection — is one of the pleasures of Hoffs’ novel ... Rings so true.
Jane is an appealing character whose creative and emotional journeys are relatable and entertaining, and readers will enjoy watching her come into her own after years of struggle and self-doubt.
...a delightfully entertaining romance ... Hoffs focuses on what she knows best, the music business, and does a good job, especially with describing the processes of songwriting and performing ... She has a confident, humorous voice, a deft turn of phrase ('a peloton of cyclists') and a keen eye for small details that help build a foundation for her story’s reality ... She also writes about sexual tension with nuance and heat, which, if missing, would have derailed the whole plot ... all in all, This Bird Has Flown is light but not brainless, and engagingly adorable. It’s a perfect beach read for the New Wave set.
Pop music and romantic comedies go together like Hepburn and Tracy, as the hallowed status of so many rom-com soundtracks attests. This Bird Has Flown, the first novel from musician Susanna Hoffs (the Bangles, Ming Tea), is a pop confection that's too substantive to qualify as bubblegum and too much fun to qualify as emo. Call it power pop with soul ... Hoffs injects moments of exhilaration into the routine humiliations of fallen stardom ... This Bird Has Flown has sex, drugs/drink, rock and roll, and also a screwball comedy's worth of misunderstandings and a bona fide crisis of conscience. Although there's always the air of inevitability hovering over a rom-com--is there really any doubt that the couple at its center will ultimately unite?--Hoffs is too good to end on the note that readers are listening for.
