Other Birds (Book Review)

 

 

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen (2022)
(Read on Kindle)

(I bought and read this book because I've read and liked previous books by the author.)

Sarah Addison Allen writes books in the genre of "magical realism". In all the books by her that I read before, the magic was strongly related to food. In this one, I find the food factor less dominant, even if it can still be noted in certain details.

Zoey Hennessey has inherited an apartment that belonged to her dead mother, and comes to Mallow Island to take possession of it. It's one of five condos in a building called Dellawisp - named after a special kind of bird, native to this island (and found nowhere else in the world). To add to the sense of mystery, Zoey also brings with her an unusual bird of her own. (To everyone else, it just looks like she's bringing an empty bird cage, though...)

The same night that Zoey arrives, one of her neighbours dies. This neighbour turns out to have been a hoarder; and the owner/manager of the Dellawisp hires Zoey (who is looking for a job) to help clear out her apartment, while also looking for a potentially valuable manuscript that is supposed to be hidden somewhere among all the hoarded piles of paper in there. 

While taking on this task, Zoey also gradually gets to know the other neighbours - all with their own stories and secrets. Sometimes there is a thin line between the present and the past, and what is "real" or not. Some of the chapters in the book are also "ghost stories" - told from the perspective of people who are no longer living - but none the less still "hanging around", so to say... and in various ways still affecting the lives of those they left behind. 

While this may sound strange, at the same time the book actually feels quite down to earth - dealing with themes like loss and grief, and how everyone struggles in different ways to work their own way through all that. 

Sarah Addison Allen also most definitely has a "a way with words", and I found myself quite frequently stopping to ponder over, and mark, key phrases and passages.

Like:

"Stories aren't fiction. Stories are fabric. They're the white sheets we drape over our ghosts so we can see them." (Quote from a fictional book within the story.)

"Birds are supposed to be messengers between heaven and earth."

"There are lots of things we can't see that are real."

"There were only two times in a person's life when a family secret should be revealed... at the very beginning, or at the very end."

"It is love, even if you're not loved back. It is."

- - -

SARAH ADDISON ALLEN is the New York Times bestselling author of Garden Spells, The Sugar Queen, The Girl Who Chased the Moon, Lost Lake, First Frost and Other Birds. She's sold millions of copies worldwide and her books have been translated into more than thirty languages. She was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina.