Mesmeric and mythical story set in Trinidad, about two young adults who come together at important crossroads in both their lives.

Having to take whatever work he can get, Darwin has no choice other than to become a gravedigger, but at the cost of his relationship with his mother.

Yejide wasn't very close to her mother, who instead spent all her time with her twin sister as though they were each one half of the same person. Now that she has died, Yejide feels overwhelmed and unprepared for the role she must now fulfil, her mother's ability to see the dead having now passed to her.

Beautiful storytelling and sense of place, with the locations and surroundings becoming characters in their own right.

This is a short book. I loved the premise. It is set in Trinidad and is told from dual POVs. It is very character based and lacks plot.

A beautiful and serendipitous story, that transpires after Darwin leaves his old life behind to discover his destiny, instead his life intertwines with Yejide, Both need each other more than they realise as they navigate their lives in new circumstances.
An engaging and recommended read.

An enjoyable read, beautifully written. Hadn't read this author before but would consider reading again as it was the kind of book I love

The download date was unfortunately missed, I would be happy to re-review if it became available again. I have awarded stars for the book cover and description as they both appeal to me. I would be more than happy to re-read and review if a download becomes available. If you would like me to re-review please feel free to contact me at thesecretbookreview@gmail.com or via social media The_secret_bookreview (Instagram) or Secret_bookblog (Twitter). Thank you.

There are so many things that I loved I this book. The sense of place was wonderfully evoked in the descriptions, the language and the interior storytelling. The prose is full of colour and texture and rhythm that made it a real multi-sensory experience to read. The settings are wonderfully realised so that the graveyard and Morne Marie become characters in their own right, with shifting moods and personalities that impact, and are impacted by, the people that inhabit them.

The mythology is dark, and sharp and visceral and is ingrained into the story through the beliefs and transitions of the characters, from the social stigma of Darwin's work in a graveyard to the rich mythology bound up in Yejide's family history and her apparent destiny to commune with and protect against the dead.

There is a significant difference between Yehide, a woman with a strong family legacy and reputation and Darwin, a Rastafarian boy from the countryside who is sacrificing everything to afford medicine for his mother. Despite this both are running up against the expectations of their mothers. Darwin's choices run foul of his faith and his mother's and Yehide is reluctant to take on the spiritual role she inherits from her own mother.

The one thing that bothered me was the late stage that the two stories properly intertwine but when they do the climax is dramatic, atmospheric and lingers long in the memory.

ARC Review: When We Were Birds

This novel follows two characters, Yejide and Darwin. Yejide has the power to talk to the dead, and Darwin is a gravedigger. While their lives are very different, together they find a mutual understanding of love, life, and death.
🦜
The weaving of Darwin and Yejide’s fates was stunning to witness, and the premise of people being drawn together by the cemetery, and the promise of all ending up in the same place in the end, was tear jerkingly beautiful. I can certainly foresee this becoming a modern classic.
🦜
I was fortunate enough to receive an ARC copy of @ayalloydbanwo ‘s authorial debut #whenwewerebirds from @netgalley , and I was completely blown way by, not only the fascinating premise of the book, but the depth of characters. I implore you to read this book.

🦜🦜🦜🦜🦜/5

This was a lovely story but I did find it hard to get into for the first half - I had to wait for the audiobook which was wonderfully narrated. I enjoyed the family dynamics in this and the way magic, religion and life were addressed, it was clever and beautiful.

3.75⭐

I really enjoy the author's style of writing in this novel. There is a sense of immediacy portrayed by the use of the present tense; for example, 'Catherine open her eyes wide and the blue smoke curl out of her nostrils'. It allows the story to come alive, and for a sense of the characters' authentic way of speaking to be presented. We have two main protagonists, Darwin and Yejide, both of whom are fully realised and dimensional. Despite the chapters moving back and forth between their narratives, the story maintains its flow, and you can feel the way the two stories intertwine, even before they meet.

One of the most interesting parallels between the two narratives is the way they present two different relationships with one's mother. Yejide has had a strained relationship with her mother for her whole life, never feeling any love between the two of them, and yet she is driven by a powerfully strong sense of duty not just to her mother, but to her maternal ancestry. Darwin often reflects on his childhood that consisted of just him and his mother, and there is clearly a fierce love between the two of them, and yet in seeking work, he has directly gone against his mother's wishes, and arguably his duty to her. Ultimately, neither relationship is completely healed by the book's end, and yet there is a sense of a strong maternal bond in both narratives, one that will outlast any hardship.

The relationship that grows between Darwin and Yejide is stunning - it is stormy and calm at the same time. There is a palpable energy between them, even though they only meet properly halfway through the novel. It feels like everything has been driving them to that moment, and once they find each other, there is no way for them not to keep being drawn back to each other. It is even more powerful that their relationship, which is so clearly full of life, is presented in constant contrast with death. They meet in a cemetery, where Yejide is in the process of burying her mother, and Darwin is digging the grave. In fact, Yejide is constantly confronted with death, but not when with Darwin, and this idea of their relationship as presenting a new life energy for her comes through on the pages.

Dense with magic, myth, tension and heat, this is an atmospheric and wonderful book. Prepare to be immersed.

It's beautiful and I loved the theme of death and the dead not really living us. The characters were well written and we'll thought of, especially Darwin. The atmosphere was mysterious and I liked the slower pace before it all starts. Unfortunately, and although I appreciate the reason why and how authentic it is in parts of the world, the writing dud not really work for me.

"Can you hear a distant drum//bouncing on the laughter of a melody...calypso, calypso//calypso music."- David Rudder

From the very first page, I realised that this book read like a sweet, sweet, Rudder- or Sparrow-like calypso, rolling off my mind with magical lyrics and notes that only an amazing writer armed with skill smooth as butter could provide. To write an entire novel– a debut novel at that– in Trinidadian Creole is no easy feat for a writer trying to get internationally published. Ayanna Lloyd Banwo has shattered the misconception that Caribbean writers are forced into code switching in their own work, mixing Standard English with Creole. This makes the book more desirable; the reader has to meet the writer where she is, not the other way around and that is the hallmark of an amazing novel.
This is no magical realism. This is good ol' Caribbean Storytelling and is deserving of its own genre of writing. This is a love story. To love someone flawed, is to truly love that person and Lloyd Banwo shows exactly that with Darwin and Yejide, Darwin and Janaya, Yejide and Seema. I heard the distant drum in this dedication to the Caribbean.

Darwin needs a job, but the only one he can find is as a gravedigger, which estranges him from his mother and his conflicts with his Rastafari upbringing., Moreover, there are suspicious occurrences in the cemetery which he is reluctant to be a part of. Yejide comes from a long line of women who can speak to the dead, and they meet formally when she arranges for her mother's burial, although he is convinced he has met her before. Neither really belongs in the city, and they are instantly drawn to each other.
Lyrical, poetic and beguiling, this novel works as a love story, an intense study of grief and a celebration of the power of family ties and heritage. I am recommending it to my book group.

Thank you to the publisher for my earc of this book!
I love the way this book is written! It flows so well and was so immersive. I am also not a lover of reading about death but this is handled so well in this book!

For a book with such strong themes of death, you would expect something much darker than what Ayanna Lloyd Banwo has written. It has its moments, certainly, but the dark moments are just one side of this story, which uses magical realism and romance to weave a multi-faceted narrative.

The stand-out feature of this book for me was the writing itself. Banwo has such a talent with words. There were so many times I highlighted a passage, or put my Kindle down to just allow myself to digest what I had just read. I’m very excited to read her future work; if this is her debut novel, I can’t wait to see what she comes out with next!

Although there is a strong romantic element to the story, the romance itself doesn’t come until quite late on, instead taking the time to build up the two main characters on their separate storylines. Of the two characters I did find Darwin much more compelling, as we slowly uncovered not just his story but the goings-on around him.

While the individual elements of the story were great, there was something about it that I just couldn’t quite engage with. Once I was sat down reading I could quite happily whiz through several chapters, but it didn’t quite compel me to pick it up once I’d put it down again. That being said, the writing was stunning and the overall story was unusual and unlike anything else I’ve read.

Thank you to the publishers for providing me with a free copy for review. All opinions are my own.

This book describes beautifully densely populated poetically described world populated by immediately recognisable characters
You really feel you are in the steamy heat of a Caribbean hot summer day just what I needed reading as I was on a chilly Uk spring
The author has a clear flowing lyrical prose style and I very much enjoyed the immersive reading experience .I was immediately grabbed by the book and wanted to know what happens next to the characters
The mildly mystical elements were woven gently into the story mixing naturally with the realistic true life elements
I would recommend this book to lovers of the literary novel

Do you tend to gravitate towards realistic books, or do you like a bit of magic/witchcraft/fantasy? I'm more of the former. Give me literary fiction with intense character-driven stories; I also like to learn more about certain countries, cultures or time periods through fiction.

This means that I almost gave up on When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo about a third of the way through, because magical realism was taking me too far out of my comfort zone.

But, wow, I'm so glad I carried on. The book starts slow, which I didn't mind, and then as the story progresses, the plot took a turn and it shifted into a different kind of genre and pace, which I really liked.

Reading this was a bit of a rollercoaster. I didn't cry (miracle!) But I was transported into a culture which I knew next to nothing about. I feel like I travelled to Trinidad and got to meet powerful, loving, beautiful women; strong, loyal men, as well as evil, manipulative characters. And the dead. Brrr.

I was going to format this review as a "what I did / didn't like", but it would be difficult to do so without giving away some of the story. My advice would be to go in blind. Don't even read the blurb.

I am really grateful to @NetGalley and @penguinukbooks and @ayalloydbanwo for my copy in exchange for an honest review. Not sure why it took me so long to pick it up!

A gripping story about two people brought together by Death.
Emmanuel arrives in Port Angeles after finding a job in a cemetery. Yejide is forced to take on a role as the head of the family after her mother passed away.
Both have to live with knowing that their mothers don’t approve of their life choices. Both discover things they would probably rather not know, and now they have to deal with the consequences.

I enjoyed every aspect of this book. It is written in a spoken everyday language used in Trinidad which is very unusual, and the author is a master of description.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House publishing house for providing me with a free electronic copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

"A graveyard is a library, an archive" - Ayanna Lloyd Banwo

A strong and moving debut, When We Were Birds is a magical read.

At its centre are two young people wrestling with their destinies. Yejide St Bernard belongs to a long line of women duty-bound to commune with the dead. Her distant mother, Petronella, has railed against this spectral legacy, but now that she is dying it is incumbent upon her to induct Yejide into powers that will shortly become hers, remaking her from the inside out.

Meanwhile, Emmanuel Darwin, a country boy, must buy medicine for Janaya, the mother who has raised him single-handedly. The only job he’s able to find is in Port Angeles, a place that “could swallow a man whole”, she warns, believing this is exactly what happened to Darwin’s father. Worse yet, the job is in a vast cemetery called Fidelis, and their Rastafari faith prohibits contact with the deceased. Shaving off his locks in preparation, Darwin becomes unrecognisable even to himself.

It’s at Fidelis that Darwin and Yejide meet, first during a wild storm from which she materialises, dressed in white and shaking its locked gates before vanishing into thin air, and later when she arrives to discuss her mother’s funeral. Their connection is instant, electric. But how can they forge a shared future from such radically different pasts?

I’ll admit, it took me a little while at the start to get into this one, as it is quite slow-moving at times, but once I was in, I was completely hooked. And by the end, I was on the edge of my seat, willing it to last longer.

It’s so beautifully descriptive, that there’s one scene where Darwin is cutting his hair that I re-read multiple times. Another moment is when the author is describing the atmosphere of Port Angeles, I felt immersed in the culture and hive of the big city. Mixed in with that is the use of the Trinidadian dialect that just adds to the unique reading experience.

And of our course, we then have Yejide and Darwin. Old legends mixing in with a modern love story, the connection between our two main characters is beautiful. Their shared grief, and shared desperation to escape the roles and identities that have been placed upon them, you want them to achieve their dreams and the lives that they’re chasing after.

Did I use the word “beautiful” too much in this review? Probably! But it’s true. Named a Best Debut of 2022 by The Observer, I could go on and on about this book for days. I urge you to read this for what I promise will be a unique reading experience.

When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo was published on February 10 2022, by Penguin. Thanks to them, NetGalley and the author for my advance copy. This is, as always, an honest review.

A great read. I enjoyed the characters and where its is set. It is written beautifully and is a thoroughly enjoyable book.