Zoey, upon graduating high school, moves across the country to move into the place her mom left her when she died years ago. Zoey's step-mom and father have never provided the love and support Zoey needed. She sets out to make a new start and her positive personality infects all that live near her. This is a heartwarming read.

I just reviewed Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen. #NetGalley

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my ARC in exchange for my honest review. This book will be published September 13, 2022.

This is my first book by this author. I found myself easily falling into the story of this cute little town on Mallow Island. Zoey moves into the Dellawisp and slowly gets to know her neighbors while trying to track down a book by a famous local author. Birds play a big role in the book as do some ghost appearances. I liked the characters.

I’m not a fan of “magical realism” or traditional ghost stories, but this worked for me. (It wasn’t the scary kind of ghosts!) Ultimately it’s a story about family, secrets and new friends.

The seven year long wait has ended!! Thank you to St. Martin Press and Netgalley for an ARC of this novel. All opinions are my own.

Author Sarah Addison Allen has done it again. She is masterful at the magical realism prose. The story takes place on Mallow Island, close to Charleston. The characters are woven and mixed with emotional baggage, longing, survival and deep seated family secrets. Most of all it is about letting go. The characters find themselves as the creative, lonely people they are now and using that point in their life to move forward with some hope, happiness and contentment--all with the help of a few ghosts, a pigeon and the Dellawisps. A complex, cozy novel with all the feels.

Such a wonderful story. rRandom cast of characters that brings a bit of mystery, ghosts, and some magical moments. So enjoyed this heartwarming story.

Author Sarah Addison Allen is one of my favorites. She has a way of creating a sense of place and developing characters that transcend their time and circumstances so well that they escape the book and live on in my memory for years. In OTHER BIRDS, she once again does her magic and this time she seeds her tale with some mysteries and surprises, some of which aren’t fully explained until the end of the book. And they are very good details. A new adult, soon to be a college student, moves to South Carolina and her long-deceased mother’s condo, to learn something about her mother, and perhaps herself, prior to the start of classes. She is the spark for the small group of neighbors to come out of their condos and begin their own transformations into fully functioning adults. Magical things seem to happen all around them. Maybe. This story is delightful and awesome in so many ways. It is hard to interrupt, a real page-turner, once started. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Was so happy to read an early copy of the authors new release. It’s been a long time and have so missed her stories. All the good feels and magic that makes her books so beautifully written are all still there. A sweet story with a few twists and friends becoming family. I enjoyed it very much!!

I love books with magical realism and this author does a great job of writing that. This story was more about the ghosts of our past, both real and spiritual. The story of Mallow Island and the new inhabitants, along with the ghosts of past inhabitants, was sweet and entertaining. There are many characters all searching for their own place and the 'found family' they create feels wonderful. I would have loved more as I felt that some threads were not fully explained or developed and the story seemed to switch focus towards the end. Enjoyed the book overall even though I was left with a feeling of needing more.

'She struggled to recall anything but, as with most things concerning her mother, her memory was more wish than real.'

'But Lizbeth wasn't listening. In death, as in life, she was singularly the worst listener he'd ever met.'

I think my own mother even wanted me to be grateful to Lucy, as if she nobly walked the path in front of me like a warrior and took all life's nasty arrows to her chest, just so I would know where to duck.'

'This grown up thing isn't for sissies.'

'Lucy then went in and out of rehab so frequently you'd think there was a sale.'

'Camille keeps saying we never know the deep-down reasons people do the things they do, so we need to be gentle with each other.'

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

If one likes this genre, all of Sarah's books are amazing. I would read her books again. Character development is amazing.

It is hard to find words to describe how incredible this story was. I love all of Sarah Addison Allen's books. Her words have the ability to make you feel and soothe your soul. This book was no exception. Zoey comes to Mallow Island in South Carolina. Her mother passed away years ago and Zoey has come to live in her mother's condo that has been held in trust for her until she turned 18. Zoey has never felt close to her father and her step-mother. Her closest relationship is with her bird, Pigeon. This is a new beginning for her and a way to connect with her mother. The condo however has no mementos of her mother so Zoey decides to befriend her new neighbors at the Dellawisp. Each of them has their own history filled with tragedy and heartbreak. What follows is a story that will tug at your heart strings as you form an attachment to each of the characters, even the ghosts.

Other Birds has elements of romance, mystery, and the paranormal. It is a story about surviving, a found family, and changing your life for the better. It is a story that you will NOT be able to put down. I recommend this book to absolutely everyone!!

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this advanced copy. I feel extremely lucky and blessed to have been chosen to read this amazing novel!

Another enchanting novel by Sarah Addison Allen . Zoey is leaving home yo start college after living with her father and his second family . She is going to Mallow island , South Carolina to live in her dead Mother's condo .You will adore Zoey and all the different occupants . Filled with mystery and and beautiful descriptions you will never want to leave

Four misfits, grieving for what they have lost, and who each endured difficult childhoods, find friendship and learn to let go of the past, in a condo building, inhabited by turquoise birds, on Mallow Island in South Carolina.

This is just such a beautiful and profound story. There are so many thought provoking messages in it. It’s charming and poignant. It’s a story about love, but not romantic love. The characters are quirky and flawed, yet likeable. Zoey, Charlotte, Mac and Oliver all have secrets and their own stories, but they learn they don’t have to be ashamed if them.

This book isn’t even released yet and it will be in my top books of 2022. It will stay will me for a long time. It’s magic!

“There are birds, and then there are other birds. Maybe they don’t sing. Maybe they don’t fly. Maybe they don’t fit in. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather be an other bird than just the same old thing.”

Thank you NetGalley St. Martins Press for introducing me to this story and the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sarah Addison Allen writes in such a sugar-coated, soul-comforting, food-craving induced style that always tends to inflict memories of my favorite moments in life—lavender vanilla iced lattes on warm spring days, midnight runs to Wal-Mart with my siblings for snacks upon snacks, the butterfly flutters of crushes & young love. Her books have always brought me such joy and with Other Birds being her comeback novel after a seven year hiatus, I am honestly overwhelmed by the urge to go frolicking through a field of flowers surrounded by dellawisps. With topics of grieving, new beginnings, the power of unbiological family, kindness, and of course, food—I could literally FEEL the love Sarah poured into this novel. Read this book for her mother, for her sister, for her~~and most definitely/importantly, for yourself.

Many thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Sarah Addison Allen for this arc!

Letting go as you still suffer from the emotional baggages you’ve been carrying which prevent you make peace with your past and shape your future might be the most challenging thing!
Sometimes just saying goodbye to the ghosts of your loved ones that seem like a betrayal and unfair ! Many things can hold you back to set them free: guilt feelings, fears, loneliness, disorientation, resentments, unconditional love, sadness.

This book is about the grief, the ghosts of the people who shaped and reformed the main characters’ lives and power of learning how to let go and believe in yourself to start over!

The magical realism and surrealism matched with angsty dramatic stories of the people who find themselves at the Dellawisp sits- a stunning cobblestone building shaped like horseshoe : a place located in Mallow Island/ South Carolina.

18 years old Zoey, talking with her invisible bird Pigeon moves to this place to experience the life of her mother left for her as soon as she got her trust fund, leaving his neglectful father and criticizing stepmother behind. She wants to learn more about her mother’s past to start her new life.

Charlotte, hippie , scooter rider, henna artist, 26, reserved young woman still deals with the ghosts of her past and the friend she’s lost.

Mac, a talented chef, still finds himself covered in corn flour in the morning when he gets visits from the woman he owes everything good in his life. He still holds onto her, resisting to let her go.

Frasier, the old man knows everyone in the building, getting used to connect with the birds and ghosts, hiding his own skeletons in the closet.

Lucy: a mysteriously lady in her 50s, living secluded life by never leaving her house and her sister Lizbeth who always resented her, recently passed away, lurking around at the building as vengeful ghost to tell her own story to feel connected and be loved by people!

And Oliver, Lizbeth’s estranged son who left the house for college education, still dealing with the damage his mother has created, having second thoughts to return to the island.

Those characters are lonely, carrying their baggages for so long! Zoey’s sudden move and Lisbeth’s death change their lives. They realize their stories are connected and power of friendship, forgiveness can heal all the damage they’ve been getting through!

This is spectacular book warmed my heart! Definitely soul healing, emotional, powerful and another must read I highly recommend!

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

Sarah Addison Allen's work is that rare kind of writing that charm the reader effortlessly then turn on a dime to stab the reader's heart with a wicked little thorn. She enchants with her words. You fall effortlessly into her worlds and glide along rivers of poetry and sadness and hope before finally finding the rivers edge.

Quirky, gentle Zooey is running from a loveless home with nothing but an empty birdcage and dreams of a better life. When she arrives on Mallow Island to take possession of her long dead mother's condo she has hopes of making real friends for the first time in her life and finding answers to all the questions she has about a mother she can barely remember.

Instead before her first night is over one of the communities strangest residents is dead and she's tasked with going through the dead woman's apartment. As she sifts through piles upon piles of paper and junk she meets the other residents; a tough as nails henna artist hiding a dangerous secret, a sad, sweet natured chef in mourning, and the mysterious caretaker of the community who's relationship with the resident birds borders on an obsession.

Every resident is being haunted. By long held pain, by lost love, by missed opportunities and by more than one literal ghost. And all of them are looking for the love and acceptance they never had with their own families. Their journey to finding those connections with each other and putting those ghosts, both literal and metaphorical, to bed is the heart of Allen's beautiful, sweetly haunting book.

The journey is the real treasure here, those first moments of tentative friendship and love, quiet revelations, the gentle letting go of past pain and sadness. I could have stayed with these characters forever just to spend a little more time in their world.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this in exchange for my honest review.

This author’s books feel like such a warm hug, and this one was no exception. I love her descriptions of food and how she writes about the town/neighborhood. I wish Mallow Island was a real place that I could visit and I wish I could see what a dellawisp looks like! 😩 Really lovely.

This is a magical book about loss, grief, and chosen family. Every single character in this book has such a sad story to tell and each one is more interesting than the last. I also liked the ghosts’ versions of the stories being told and their perspective on them. However, took half the book for me to finally get into it. I think it is because I was often confused about who’s story was being told because there were so many characters and there are a lot of different timelines going on. Overall I really enjoyed it and want to know more about these characters’ stories.

Other Birds is the kind of book that is so welcoming and refreshing after reading a few dramatic thrillers! Sarah Addison Allen is the master of whimsical fiction stories with a hint of bohemian and mystery infused characters in them.

Zoey is an adorable 18 year old girl whom has lost her mother and was raised by her father and stepmother. Her stepmother is less than desirable as a human being and only cares about her own biological children. It is time for Zoey to find her own way and use the money and condo that was left to her by her mother before she starts college.

Once she moves to Mallow Island she is immediately immersed in a little colony of interesting people of all ages and from all walks of life. What complex and interesting characters Sarah has developed! This book reminds us that we are not walking in life alone and that family is not how the dictionary describes it. Family is a person or group of people that truly care about you, are there for you and the feelings are reciprocated. Also, family can be an animal like a bird or dog and can even be a ghost!

I truly enjoyed this book. I am so thankful for the ARC I received from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press.

Other Birds is a story about a group of neighbors and the ghosts that watch over them. I really liked this book. It was quaint, magical, and ghostly but not in a spooky way. Each character had so much depth to them. I really loved the ghosts, getting to know their stories, seeing the little or big ways they stuck around. This book was about holding on, saying goodbye and letting go. I liked the little twists/reveals and the roles of the birds and what they symbolized. Would recommend if you like found family books.

I adored this book. As with all of her books, there is a fictional town that I wanted to get lost in, a tone that is light and warm-hearted, with just the right balance of serious substance to keep it from getting overly sweet, with a sprinkle of magic throughout.

There is a wonderful grouping of different many characters with realistic motivations, backgrounds, and relationships. I liked the use of many different POVs to keep the plotline just twisty enough that I couldn't guess where the story would go next. The setting was rich and easily pictured - I wish I could go live at the Dellawisp and I was disappointed I could just stop in.

It is beautiful and comforting and you are left feeling like you just got the best hug - you can feel the love that the author up into this story.

This might be one of my all-time favorites from this author. I already want to re-read it (and I pre-ordered myself a physical copy).

I have enjoyed this author's storytelling in her previous books. Other Birds is in line with her great ability to hook the reader, keep them reading until the end and leave them wanting more. Zoey is the main character but I found that the other players in this story also take on a life of their own. If Mallow Island were a real place like described in Other Birds, I would definitely visit. Thank you again Sarah Addison Allen for another enjoyable book. I look forward to more about Zoey, Charlotte, Mac, Lucy and Frasier.