Recent Reads: Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen 
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date:  August 30, 2022

 

Format: Hardback
Source: Book of the Month Sept pick.

Rating:


Goodreads Synopsis: 

An enchanting tale filled with magical realism and moments of pure love that won’t let you go.

Between the real and the imaginary, there are stories that take flight in the most extraordinary ways.

Right off the coast of South Carolina, on Mallow Island, The Dellawisp sits—a stunning old cobblestone building shaped like a horseshoe, and named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy.

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. The sudden death of one of Zoey's new neighbors sets off a search that leads to the island's famous author and to a long-estranged relative of the sisters.

Each of them has a story, and each story has an ending which hasn't yet been written.

Review: 

I really like this author's use of magical realism in her novels. While seemingly contemporary fiction, there are magical realism elements interspersed in a whimsical way.  The story is about futures, happiness, friendship and love, and I really liked the found-family elements this book created. Readers follow Zoey, who moves into her mother's condo the summer before she is due to set of to a nearby college. She meets her neighbors, Charlotte who is a loner, bohemian, henna artist; Mac a chef, they crazy lady that is always yelling at people and snooping, and her mysterious sister that does not come out of her unit. There is also a son, an author, and a caretaker as well. So there are a lot of characters in this one but it all flows really well. 

The book follows all these characters as Zoey learns more about them during her time there, but we also learn about them through ghosts that linger at teh Dellawisp - the complex they live in. 

This was such a fun book for a number of reasons. The author did such a wonderful job creating atmosphere. I want to visit Mallow Island and the Dellawisp and see the bird and meet all these strange people that seem like so much fun. The twist ans turns this books takes were well done and some were unexpected and shocking. There was so much depth - of enviornment, of characters and their emotions and feelings and beings. It all worked together beautifully.

If you enjoy magical realism or would like to try it, Sarah Addison Allen's work is a great place to start. It is subtle and whimical, just know that you might not get explanations unitl the very end.