The Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen is one of my favorite books that I’ve read so far in 2022. I was swept up in the story and will be recommending this book to everyone! Magical and Perfect!

Thanks to #NetGalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Other Birds was a fantastic, welcome surprise to my reading repertoire.

Every character has a backstory – something they’re trying to outrun or forget. Throw in some magical realism and a touch of found family, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a deeply engaging, thought-provoking read.

With twists and turns, I was utterly spellbound by this story, the characters, and what transpired.

“Stories aren’t fiction. Stories are fabric. They’re the white sheets we drape over our ghosts so we can see them.”

I highly recommend picking up this book and giving it a read! Other Birds is definitely a favorite of 2022 for me!

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC. All thoughts in this review are honest and my own.

When you've had an invisible pigeon as your dearest friend your entire life, anything is possible.

In this wonderful book of magical realism, Sarah Addison Allen explores the ties of family, the thin veil that meanders between the world of dreams and the world beneath our feet, and the impact out choices have on those we love.

Zoey arrives on Mallow Island with a heart full of hope. She's here to immerse herself in its tranquility and find memories of her mother. What she finds instead is a cast of misfits living in disjointed harmony. When the tenuous peace of the resort is upset by an unexpected death, Zoey unexpectedly becomes part of the mystery and obscurity that colored the life of one of the residents.

Zoey is tasked with both cleaning up and untangling the threads of the woman's life. She comes to understand the woman's obsession, peculiarity and neurosis. She is pulled into the intricate details of the lives of her neighbors, and reaches out to the deceased resident's estranged son in an attempt to mend bridges.

This book has several narrators, but they do not detract from the power of the story. Instead, they enrich it and add layers of understanding for the reader.

I received a galley of this book in return for an honest review. Another awesome book by Ms. Allen. I loved the interweaving of the stories of the characters and the different themes. The characters are all haunted in many ways It is also a.story of love and connection. The development of plot and character and the ending were satisfying. Complex and heartwarming it was a good read and worth the time. I recommend it

✨Book Review✨

🐦 I absolutely love magical realism stories and this book did not disappoint.

🐦 I love how genuine this story felt. This is a story about everyday people living their lives and dealing with their pasts. The characters feel like people you would know… people you would be friends with. And, yes, it is a ghost story, but not a scary one. This story is full of hope and love from page one.

🐦 I love how food symbolized love in the book.

🐦 This is an awesome found family story! I love that trope and this one was exceptional.

🐦 Every single character in this story deserves their own book. Even the ghosts. I’m not kidding! I would be first in line to read a full backstory for any of the characters in this book if the author wrote them! *Hint hint*

🐦 While I didn’t want the story to end, I did find the conclusion to be very satisfying. I will even admit that I had a tear or two as I turned the last page.

🐦 Amazing writing, genuine story, completely engaging, and an ideal example of magical realism IMO. I’ve never read this author before, but I will definitely be reading more now.

Thank you @NetGalley and @StMartinsPress for an eARC of this book, which I have read and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

This was a beautiful book, with a touch of magical realism, which I love. Every character in this book was unique and I loved how everyone's stories tied together and how this random crowd of people found solace in each other. The birds and how they tied into the story was just such a beautiful addition and truly felt magical. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC title. This one fell really flat for me and I really struggled to finish it. The story was choppy and hard to follow. The characters were so boring I could barely focus as I read. I’m not even entirely sure what I just read.

✨ Review ✨ Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen

I adored this beautiful little book by Allen -- it's a story of found family and magical realism and stories and pasts and futures.

The book follows Zoey, a 19-year-old who moves into her dead mom's apartment on Mallow Island, a tourist island in South Carolina know for it's marshmallows, sweets, and Southern charm. The small apartment complex is surrounded by little turquoise birds called dellawisps that hate outsiders and love hoarding stolen items.

Zoey befriends the tenants of the magical little apartment complex and increasingly we see the perspectives of tenants like Mac, a chef specializing in cornmeal, Charlotte, a henna artist, and Frasier, the building manager. I love how the book gradually expanded its POVs, showing us the ghosts that haunt each of the residents. Allen gracefully unravels their stories like a ball of yarn and shows us that they're all beautiful in their quirks.

As bonds grow between the residents, the story brings in magic not only in the ghosts that surround the residents, but also a magic of hope and possibility, as we can see possible new futures for each of them. The book is short and brimming with warmth, and perfect for a crisp fall read.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: magical realism, literary fiction
Location: Mallow Island, South Carolina
Pub Date: out now

Read this if you like:
⭕️ found family
⭕️ magical realism & ghosts
⭕️ stories about the insiders in tourist places
⭕️ adorable, naughty little birds

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and #netgalley for an advanced e-copy of this book!

It has been way to long since we were blessed with a book from Sarah Addison Allen but the wait was totally worth it! Other Birds was just the story I needed from her right now.

Zoey drops herself right in the middle of a bunch of oldball, quirky neighbors at her deceased mother's condo. From the very first line, I knew this was going to be a magical trip through the lives of some amazing characters. I loved all of them and was fascinated to discover all of the secrets they were keeping while watching how they all came to mesh with each other.

If you are a lover of magical realism like I am, you're going to love this story that allows you to escape your life for a bit to enjoy some love, friendship, quirkiness, and a few ghosts. I highly recommend Other Birds! I loved it!

I really do hate to be Negative Nelly, but Other Birds lacked the magical spark contained in her past novels. The magical realism aspect was there, albeit in a diminished state and wasn't fully threaded through the tale as a whole. The setting was honestly the most charming aspect of the whole thing: the Dellawisp, named after the magical turquoise-colored birds that reside there. The residents of the Dellawisp all possess their own secrets, but I found myself less intrigued with the residents that I think I was meant to be. I am glad to see more SAA in the world, in spite of my personal feelings of this novel, because I'm happy that she was finally able to find her way back to writing.

Magical realism is not usually my favourite type of books, but I enjoyed this one! It’s the first book I read by Sarah Addison Allen, didn’t have much expectation but I think I’ll definitely read more books by her! Thank you NetGalley and St.Martin’s Press for this ARC :)

There’s just something about a Sarah Addison Allen story…

The first time a read a story about Sarah Addison Allen I was spellbound! It is hard to describe her stories. Heartwarming? For sure!

Other Birds is a story about acceptance and love. I love the characters and the setting! If you are looking for a light story that is heartwarming and satisfying, then look no further.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Publishing Group for the opportunity to read and review this book!

BOOK REVIEW

BOOK: Other Birds
AUTHOR: Sarah Addison Allen
FORMAT: Physical
GENRE: Magical Realism
DID I CRY: No
PUB DATE: 8/30/22
RATING: 4/10
2 stars

Thank you stmartinspress for my #gifted advanced copy of OTHER BIRDS, out 8/30!

MY THOUGHTS

Hmph. I was super excited to pick this book up because the early ratings were so high & it had rave reviews, but unfortunately this one didn’t quite work for me.

I love magical realism. I’m always fascinated by the ways the author is going to twist reality to enhance the plot. In this case, the plot definitely was made better by the magical realism components. I also enjoyed that this book was character-driven. The writing was pretty good in the sense that it flowed nicely from one POV to another. The themes of this book also were nicely done. Loss and grief were portrayed in a really beautiful way and the author did a nice job of wrapping that up in the end.

My qualms… well I was bored. I actually DNF this book at around 60% or so, but I had taken this picture before that and I loved the picture so I forced myself to pick the book back up. It’s nice when a book is character-driven, but not when the characters are dry and uninteresting. They were all quirky which I enjoyed, but I just found that there wasn’t a single POV I enjoyed. And while the ending was better than the first two-thirds of the book, it felt like reading an entirely separate book. It had action & fighting & was just out of control.

Thank you Netgalley for the free ARC in return for an honest review.

Charming story about the oddball residents of a small condo on a South Carolinian island, each with secrets and ghosts (some literal). I haven't read a Sarah Addison Allen book for some time and this one did not disappoint. Recommend for those wanting a more uplifting story.

An apartment complex called the Dellawisp is the setting for this lovely story of friendship, mothers, love, and ghosts. And unusual birds.
The occupants of this complex are: newly arrived young main character Zoey, secretive henna artist Charlotte, award-winning chef Mac, nosy, unlikeable Lisbeth, her super secretive sister Lucy, and the apartment manager Frasier, all of whom become involved together over a few months.
The story mostly is concerned with Zoey, Charlotte and Mac, and they all have some form of trauma or neglect in their lives and would have probably continued, lonely and solitary, if not for Lisbeth’s sudden death, which is the catalyst for them beginning to open up to each other.

There is a slight feeling of otherworldliness about the Dellawisp, reinforced by the funny little blue birds flitting about the complex, and by the ghost living with Zoey, who resembles a pigeon, and for the ghosts Frasier can see, and for the ghost tied to Mac.

The story is both whimsical, sad, but also oddly heartwarming. And though the story is somewhat slow-paced, but held my attention from its beginning to its satisfying end.

Thank you to Netgalley and to St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.

Other Birds, by Sarah Addison Allen, tell the story of a young woman named Zoey who moves into her deceased mother’s studio apartment on Mallow Island the summer before she begins college. When one of her new neighbors, Lizbeth Lime, dies under mysterious circumstances, Zoey is hired to clean up the apartment to look for a lost manuscript that has been promised to the writer who made Mallow Island famous. It is through this process that Zoey comes to know her other neighbors (Charlotte, a henna artist, Mac, a chef, and Lucy, sister of the dead neighbor Lizbeth) and their many secrets.

In addition to revolving around images of birds and freedom (Zoey owns an invisible pigeon and the condo complex is populated by native turquoise dellawisps), the novel beautifully explores motherhood and storytelling. The chapters are punctuated by ghost stories told by characters who are not yet able to pass on to the afterlife due to their links to living people. There are several plot twists in the book that will keep readers on their toes, but my favorite part of the book is the investigation of dreams, ghosts, stories, and love, those elements that can’t be seen though they are shape our response to life.

In talking about stories, the text asks “What happens to them? Where do they go? If you never share your stories…does that mean they are not real?” Other Birds is the type of story that you will want to share with the people that you love as it creates an empathetic look at mothering, the necessity of letting go, and the way we can use the art of storytelling to remain connected even when life separates us. A beautiful book! Highly recommend!

This is the first novel I read by the author. I enjoyed reading. But, for me it took awhile to connect with all the characters and how they connected to each other until it came together at the end..

The book was magic and full of beautiful surprises especially toward the end. The birds have a beautiful specific meaning. So pay attention to Zoey, and her magical bird. It was so lovely story. Themes, love, physical, and emotional abuse, friendships, and what is a family?, by blood? Or people you connect with? Would make a wonderful book club book. I will definitely read the author's previous novels.

I can’t get over how good this book was!! It made me better understand some people in my life and why they have made/make the decisions that they do. This book will stay with me for a very very long time!

Sarah Addison Allen has always had a fan in me, and this book did not change that. However, this was not the instant five-star that I was hoping for. SAA has always had the ability to give the magic in her novels its own personality, and I felt it at the very beginning. However, somewhere around the 40% mark, Other Birds started to lose its shine. I loved the insertion of the ghosts and their chapters, but I do have to admit that their entrances were a lot more captivating than most of their exits. Certain character details were dropped at the end of chapters and then never really examined again. I was sad when this story ended, but I didn't end it feeling sad and fulfilled, you know? Overall, if you enjoy books with magic realism and island charm, this book could be the ticket. If you've missed Sarah Addison Allen's books, this book will go a good way to filling that void, even if it wasn't one of my favorites from her.

I'd like to thank the person who started writing magic realism fiction; even the person who coined the phrase deserves kudos. Having found the fantasy genre unreadable as a middle-aged woman, when teenaged/young adult me devoured every book about magic and fantasy possible, I am so grateful for authors like Sarah Addison Allen, who writes in this genre. There's just enough fantasy in it for me.

I loved this book. There was so much to be enchanted by: not only does she create wonderful characters, she created an island, with a great backstory, she created birds. Little magical turquoise blue thieving birds.

I love how she interweaved the lives of the two or three generations, both living and dead and how ghosts filled us in on details we should know. Also, the message that you can't pick your family, but you can pick friends who become your family is obvious throughout.

I loved the little secret at the end. I never expected that, and I'm glad Zoey keeps it.

My one complaint with the book is that it's too short. I want to know what happens to these characters? Are they still happy? What's going on in their lives?

Thank you, NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review this book. All opinions are mine, and freely expressed. Thank you, Ms. Allen, for your wonderful books. I will continue to read each new one.