Adrian spends his days thinking of things that unsettle him such as sea monsters and growing purple hair.

Shortly after the disappearance of the Metford children, a twelve-year-old girl called Nicole moves in across the street from Adrian.

The novel ends tragically with Adrian and Nicole falling beneath a pool cover (while trying to find the abducted children) in winter and being unable to break through to the air.

Kirkus Reviews referred to What the Birds See as a "bleakly haunting novel [that] focuses its lens on a child struggling to survive in a family of emotional cripples", further describing the narrative as "exquisite, wrenching, [and] unforgettable".

"[2] Kirkus Reviews similarly discussed the writing style, indicating that Hartnett "has a genius for voice, her third-person narrative sliding effortlessly from Adrian’s point-of-view to his grandmother’s and back, always tightly filtering the story through the experiences and perceptions of her focus".