The Key to the Golden Firebird Reviews

The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson
Review by: Amanda

Brooks, Mayzie, and Palmer, the Gold sisters, all named after famous baseball players, suffer a terrible blow when their father suddenly dies. Over the course of a year, the three of them drift further and further apart. Brooks, the oldest, becomes a bit of a wild child, spending her time partying with a boy who doesn’t call himself her boyfriend. Palmer, the youngest, suffers panic attacks that no one knows about and throws herself into her role as the youngest member of the high school softball team. Mayzie, or May, the middle sister, becomes focused on school and work, devoting herself to doing everything her mother asks. It takes a long time for them to reform the bonds they have broken, but they do it with the help of their father’s car, the Pontiac Firebird that sits in the garage.

Although the story is about all three of the sisters and how they cope, it is May’s story that takes up the largest amount of the novel. She’s taken on the role of surrogate mom to her sisters. It is May who makes dinner, keeps track of plans, and scolds her sisters, while her mother works nights at the hospital. All of her responsibility, and the fact that she and her mother are rarely home at the same time, means that May doesn’t know how to drive though. When she fails her driving test, her friend Peter Camp (former childhood nemesis and son of her father’s best friend) decides to teach her. May and Peter, or Camper as she likes to call him, have an interesting bond. They pick on one another constantly (the novel even begins with May and her sisters stealing his clothes while he’s swimming), but are obviously very close. May’s the only one who doesn’t seem to understand it, and it’s this misunderstanding that really helps her to grow in the novel.

Even though May’s story is obviously central, I loved the way Maureen Johnson examined the relationships amongst the sisters. Because of the way she tells the story, you get glimpses into how the girls view one another and how they are affected by what’s going on in their lives. In all honesty, despite my love for how the friendship develops between May and Peter, Palmer’s story is probably the most interesting. She’s the one who finds a way to bring the three sisters back together, even though bringing them together is not her intention when she starts going through her mother’s things when everyone else is out or asleep.

I don’t usually like sad stories. I don’t really like to read about death or coping with it. Maureen Johnson though, she handles it brilliantly. There are bits of sadness and heartbreak sprinkled throughout the novel, but it’s also laced with sarcasm and humor. Some of the conversations between May and Peter are the funniest parts of the book, but also some of the most heartwrenching. It’s all just very real, something that YA authors don‘t always manage to get right. Well, there is one part, near the end, that I’m not sure if a real group of sisters would have been able to pull off, but it’s great. Definitely worth a few hours of your time to read.