I had been looking forward to Charlotte McConaghy’s Migrations for a long time because of the universal praise and raves I had seen for it and her next book, Once There Were Wolves (to be reviewed tomorrow). Migrations could be said to fall into the category of “climate fiction”, in that it presents a future in which Earth is undergoing mass extinctions. Migrations begins with the narrator Franny on a mission to follow the last Arctic terns in the world on what may be their final migration to Antarctica. Along the way, we see the tension between freedom and captivity, survival and extinguishment in the birds echoed in Franny’s own journey.

I have to say - this mini-review is a difficult one to write, since the overwhelming feeling I had while reading it was: am I reading the same book as everyone else? In terms of character development, Franny’s defining key characteristics of changeability and flightiness and how these are tied to her past and recent traumas are revealed by the author without significant development in the actual narrative of the book. This is a character to whom things happen; to whom people are incomprehensibly drawn and captivated without explanation. The actions she takes and spurs others to take feel unearned, and it was difficult to be invested in her journey. In terms of themes and setting, the author does little to make this world on the brink come alive, this world where the forests are dying and birdsong is about to be lost to time - aside from news headlines about extinctions that are mentioned in passing. The writing, which has such an opportunity to blossom with the premise, is too self-absorbed in Franny’s thoughts to truly engage with the beauty of this dying world.

All in all, I appreciate what this book is trying to do by linking themes of personal trauma and belonging to the natural world. But the execution is shallow and emotionally manipulative, and I can’t find myself recommending Migrations as the vehicle to explore these themes.