Other Birds

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The Magical Realism kicks in early and feels like wind chimes sound in a delicate breeze, soft, sweet, and soothing. Zoey Hennessey, on the cusp of nineteen, is relocating from Tulsa to Mallow Island off the South Carolina coast. I didn’t love it as much as I remembered loving SAA’s earlier books and I’m honestly not sure how much that’s about the book and how much is about my taste having changed. I cheered for each character as they confronted the traumas of their past and opened their guarded hearts to each other.

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen: Book Review Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen: Book Review

Any materials passed down found their way to relations other than me, to my aunt’s family perhaps, or maybe through my mother to my older sibs, sisters in particular. Lighthearted by nature, she builds a puzzle through back stories that are revealed in the final chapters, the mark of a carefully planned out plot. Born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina, in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Allen grew up with a love of books and an appreciation of good food (she credits her journalist father for the former and her mother, a fabulous cook, for the latter). They are lonely and sad and try to hide these feelings but instead they wear them like a cloak they can't take off. Sarah Addison Allen shows us that between the real and the imaginary, there are stories that take flight in the most extraordinary ways.

There's some magical realism here and a touch of the supernatural, but not in a scary or off-putting sense (at least not for me - YMMV! She soon discovers that many unfinished stories permeate the place, and the people around her are in as much need of healing from wrongs of the past as she is. It’s not that this is a totally light read, but it does provide some respite from the full reality of some of distressing things happening around us. Please read the reviews from those who love the genre and the author because it’s just a matter of personal taste and nothing more. With millions of books now in print and translated into more than 30 languages, Sarah continues to serve heaping helpings of the fantastic and the familiar in fiction she describes as "Southern-fried magic realism.

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen | Goodreads Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen | Goodreads

Zoey and her invisible bird, Pigeon are headed to Mallow Island to the condo Zoey’s mom left her when she passed away. A lonely, isolated young woman looking for remnants of her mother’s life, a place to belong, moves to a quiet island off the coast of South Carolina. The main character is an insufferable "quirky" girl who is innocent and always happy (it's not 2011 anymore, can we stop with this trope. Several seconds passed and he continued to stare, which she found disconcerting because she felt his eyes should really be on the long bridge over the water.

The story begins when eighteen-year-old Zoey arrives at her deceased mother’s home on the island of Mallow, which is known for its marshmallow confections. When Zoey comes to claim her deceased mother’s apartment at the Dellawisp she meets her quirky and secretive neighbors, including a young woman with a past, two estranged middle-aged sisters, and a lonely chef, and three ghosts.