"All the Little Bird-Hearts" by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow is a Blend of Family and Literary Fiction!

Sunday Forrester lives in the same house she grew up in. She finds comfort in order and routine, eating light-colored food, caring for things that grow, sharing her love of Italian folklore, and being in the presence of her sixteen-year-old daughter, Dolly.

When a posh London couple, Vita and Rollo, moves into the neighborhood, unexpected friendships develop and Sunday feels what it's like to be accepted and loved. It feels special until she realizes there may be something darker brewing behind the masks of the couple living next door...

"All the Little Bird Hearts" is a beautifully written first-person narrative of an autistic mother, Sunday, relaying to the reader the trauma from her past, and her perspective on the present. It's heartbreaking to hear her views and yet there is such clarity in her thoughts it feels comforting listening to her words.

The best part of this book is getting to know Sunday, who is a remarkable and memorable character. She relies, often lightheartedly, on the social etiquette book that keeps her within the lines drawn by others when she senses herself straying too close to the edges. She seems to possess an innate ability to flourish and is voraciously introspective. Her resilience and her observations are the high points in the story. She is a character I would love to meet.

This was an immersion reading experience through the gifted Digital Reading Copy and Advanced Listening Copy. The audiobook may be the best listening experience I've had this year with the voice of the narrator, Rose Akroyd, flowing smoothly and easily. It was a perfect pairing for this soft yet stirring listen.

"All the Little Bird Hearts", Longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, is a quiet and moving debut novel. I will remember Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow's beautiful prose, self-reflective storytelling, and a point-of-view I appreciate learning more about. I look forward to what this author writes next and I highly recommend this book with the audiobook as the best format for gaining the full essence of the main character, Sunday Forrester!

5⭐

Thank you to NetGalley, Algonquin Books, and Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow for a DRC and ALC of this book. It has been an honor to give my honest and voluntary review.

All the Little Bird-Hearts gives us a view into the life of main character Sunday as she navigates her quiet, routine existence alongside her growing and changing teenage daughter Dolly. New to the scene is their neighbor Vita, an extroverted and flamboyant woman and her husband Rols who invite Sunday and Dolly into their lives and start the mother/daughter pair down an unexpected path that interrupts Sunday’s routine in ways she never could have expected. My expectations were heightened due to its longlisting for The Booker Prize 2023 and for me, it delivered. Sometimes I believe a book finds us at just the right time and in just the right space for us to read it; this was certainly the case for me with All the Little Bird-Hearts.

The approach the author uses to tell Sunday’s story is one I appreciate; I am a fan of stories where we occupy the narrator's head, and I love how the author moved us between the present day and the past and how the pieces of the story gradually unfold. Sunday is a unique and interesting character and there are many ways I found her personally relatable. Sunday has so much self awareness of her not being “wired right” and while I don’t think it’s ever explicitly stated many things point to her being on the autism spectrum. Likely because of this, even with all her self awareness she seems to miss important clues about things that are happening around her that would be obvious to others.

I have read many books on mother/daughter relationships but there is something about this one that felt unique. I love that it portrayed how fraught this relationship can be at times with feelings that the “grass is always greener” and the conflict of wanting to be a parent yet wanting the freedom of not parenting. And as a child, of loving the mother you have but also having the mother who isn't exactly who you want them to be. There is the longing for love and approval, (“wanting your mother to see something worthwhile in you was probably the most normal condition I could find myself in”) but also the “triumph of love that remains even when it is seemingly unreturned” as it so often is between mother and child. (() “Did I watch over her too much or not enough? I trusted my child, always, more than I had myself.” I don’t think I’ve read a book that writes about control (or lack of) in the parent/child relationship in the way this one does. There are so many moments of helplessness and this book captured that in such a unique and interesting way that I don’t think I’ve experienced before. I think this was the aspect of this story that I appreciated the most.

Even though I enjoyed this book, it feels strange to gush about loving it, which seems in line with the character and life she is sharing with us. I felt emotion in reading this book, but mostly empathy, connection, and some sadness as we come along on the journey that is unfolding for Sunday. The emotion is there but it isn’t a jump up and down shout off the rooftop kind of emotion so that doesn’t seem like a fitting reaction to this book. But as the book went on, the more invested and engaged I felt in where the story would take us. Ultimately this is a story of hope and acceptance; Sunday’s life is heartbreaking and filled with trauma yet she persists. I would definitely recommend this if you like an in-the-head narrator with a quiet, slow reveal and a unique take on mothers and daughters.

Thank you @algonquinbooks @netgalley for providing me with the ebook!

This blurb from Maggie O’Farrell on the cover sums up this story perfectly,

“A novel both delicate and strong, illuminating the disturbing and the extraordinary to be found in the everyday.”

Wow- this story is just gorgeously written from the perspective of an autistic mother. The fact that the author is also autistic makes the words she chooses so honest and authentic. If I could choose one word to describe this book, it would be: Observational.

Sunday is an amazing character. The author captures beautifully her discomfort, angst and desire for routine. Be warned that this book will cause you so much discomfort as the pages turn. You will see what is coming before Sunday does, and your heart will shatter. The scenes where Sunday recalls experiences with her mother will enrage you.

Oh my heart. This book definitely captured my heart and my attention. The ending had me sitting in my reading chair, staring into nothingness, sitting with my thoughts for long after.

I recommend that you pick this one up. This is an original and emotional story that deserves to be heard.

“Where I am pale and insubstantial, Vita was dark and deliberately formed, as real as a piece of marble…I am a stutter of a person, a glitch that flickers; I am the air blurred by the summer sun.”

Thank you Algonquin books for including me on the book tour and to NetGalley for the digital copy.

Thank you for the opportunity to read the first novel by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow. I have to say I was eager to finish it because I just wanted to get it over with.

It was a strange novel and ever stranger pretenses. I felt the character's were all flawed - Sunday, Dolly, the King, Bunny, Richard, Vita and Rolls. Sunday, the main character, seemed to suffer from a disorder. I would venture to say it would later be diagnosed as autism.

The premise of having your 16 year old daughter taken away from you without a legal battle seems preposterous.

I would not recommend this novel

This book came to my attention when it was longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize. With its unique perspective, it made for a good read.

It is 1988 in England’s Lake District. Sunday Forrester is a neurodivergent single mother living with her 16-year-old daughter Dolly. She works in the plant nursery owned by her former in-laws. Sunday and Dolly’s lives are upturned when Vita and Rollo rent the house next door. Sunday has difficulty with social interactions but is happy in her encounters with Vita because she seems to accept Sunday as she is. And Dolly, an impressionable teenager, is attracted to the excitement and glamour of Vita and Rollo’s lives, qualities not found in her staid life with her mother. But all is not as it seems.

Though an official diagnosis is not given, Sunday, the narrator, seems to be on the autism spectrum. She is a creature of habit; change really disturbs her so she strives for a life of consistent routine. I loved her comment that “[Dolly] is all that I have loved more than adherence to my routines.” She also tries to avoid sensory overload: “I was born with this intolerance of noise and light, and an accompanying greed for touch and smell” so “I want my choices narrowed so that they do not become overwhelming.”

Sunday is very self-aware. She knows how her behaviour is different and considered odd: “Facial expressions typically tell me nothing more than what is said” and “it takes time and considerable effort for me to adjust my conversation or focus” and “I naturally speak in a monotone.” To help herself in social situations, Sunday has virtually memorized an etiquette book from the 1950s.

With her exuberant personality, the exotic, free-spirited Vita is Sunday’s foil. Vita is glamourous, confident, and unpredictable, all things that Sunday is not. Like almost everyone, Sunday is dazzled and captivated by Vita. But Vita, lacking the ability to understand people’s motives and intentions, is an unreliable narrator, as she admits: “the details I am drawn to are often secondary, and these often mislead.” As a result, Sunday’s descriptions of Vita mean something different to the reader. Statements like “[Vita] seemed entirely without curiosity or concern” and her having “a profound lack of interest in pleasing people” though she “had an unimaginable desire for company” and “needed constant attention” suggest that Vita is a narcissist. And only later does Sunday see that Vita is manipulative: “I had not properly understood, then, that people could be played like instruments to produce whatever sound you demanded of them.”

As soon as Vita appears, I experienced a sense of unease which grew into a sense of foreboding. Vita is so self-absorbed and has such a sense of entitlement that it seems she must have a hidden agenda, especially once she starts paying particular attention to Dolly. Knowing that her daughter is so important in Sunday’s life, I could only fear Vita’s intentions. I suspected she would have no difficulty blithely taking anything belonging to someone else if she wanted it.

This growing menace is emphasized by Sunday’s foreshadowing. She is narrating her story from the future looking back at the summer of 1988 so she often makes comments like she would still like to hear Vita’s posh accent, “even at the very end” and “Vita was extravagant and theatrical in all her expressions, and I appreciated that then.” Sunday hints that she came to realize that Vita’s “appearance of naturalness was, in fact, a construct.” Even Rollo is described as “solid and sweet as he seemed then.”

I loved seeing Sunday’s growth. She comes to see Vita as shallow and self-centred. For so much of her life, Sunday has suppressed her natural reactions to appear more “normal” but at the end she no longer holds on “to the compulsions and tics inside; these must be expressed to become feelings. . . . I no longer resist the urges to tap, to touch, or to wave my hands, . . . but allow them instead to travel through me uninterrupted.” And she knows that though she may have difficulty expressing her feelings, she feels more deeply than those with little bird-hearts (like Vita, Sunday’s ex-husband, and Dolly’s paternal grandparents) who are capable of only a “superficiality of feeling.” Her love for Dolly is a “solitary devotion without asking for reciprocation.” She concludes, “my love for her remains constant; it is as fat as a beloved pet and receives the same frequent attention. It is more, certainly, than conjuring polite and pleasing lies for onlookers.” Vita is all artifice but Sunday is a genuinely loving person.

One element that bothered me is the repetition. The weekly dinners with Vita and Rollo follow a pattern. Sunday’s repeated references to Sicilian folk tales and constant phonetic pronunciations mimicking Vita’s accent become tedious. Yet this repetition is appropriate to the narrator who finds comfort in it. The reader’s impatience actually reflects the impatience Sunday would see regularly in people who thought her strange.

The book is not action-packed or fast paced. But I found it engaging. And it feels authentic in its depiction of the thought processes of someone on the autism spectrum. For me, the novel was a quiet but compelling read.

This novel by Lloyd-Barlow offers a brutal, vivid, and astonishing view of motherhood by way of an autistic mum and her lovely, spoilt daughter, and the glamorous couple who move in next door.

Sunday Forrester is odd; she knows that her orderly routines and disinclination toward social niceties and novelty make her different from others. Her parents certainly did not stint from telling her so. And the brief marriage that resulted in the lovely Dolly didn't change her either:
"My condition does not accompany me into the greenhouses but waits by the door, When I am alone or at work, he sleeps outside with his dark head low on his paws; he resents the lack of challenge in the greenhouse environment, where no one speaks in riddles or looks at me oddly...but in the company of others, the animal is fixed to my side. He is a smiling partner whose iron hand on me looks like affection, yet functions as a reminder of who I really am."

But she continues along, doing her best, working in near solitude and silence in a greenhouse owned by her former in-laws, thinking about Italian folklore, and trying to prepare herself for her daughter's upcoming university career. ( "The cheerfulness with which she spoke of leaving was as terrible to me as the sentiment itself.")

The writing –– the book was long-listed for the Booker Prize –– begs to be quoted. It's beautiful and insightful, and it's not entirely a surprise to learn that Lloyd-Barlow is herself a mother and autistic:,
"My focus on apparently incogruous details embarrassed Dolly, and her refusal to discuss such things was her way of training me to refrain from it. Like a husband who frowns and kicks his wife under the dining table when she accepts a second drink. Or when she talks about Sicilian ritual. My husband was one of those men. And he smiled handsomely throughout, which was somehow worse and certainly more effective than the kick."

Into Sunday's world move an upper-class couple, Vita and Rollo, who immediately befriend her. Sunday is dazzled by the attention and acceptance, but the couple almost immediately start to entangle Dolly and draw her into their world –– away from Sunday and Sunday's orderly plans.

Though Sunday does not communicate her emotions in the way neuro-typicals might, the wounds are no less painful. Sunday's analysis of the betrayal, and the clarity of her self-awareness is heartbreakingly honest. This painful story, SO beautifully told, will be on my top-ten books for the year.

My thanks to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for the free eARC in exchange for my unfettered opinion.

I requested this for consideration for Book Riot's All the Books podcast for its release date. After sampling several books out this week, I decided to go with a different book for my review.

All The Little Bird-Hearts is a novel that explores the complications that can arise (especially for a neurodivergent character) when life is disrupted. Sunday has constructed a very comfortable and predictable life with her daughter. She has difficulty showing emotion or processing emotional cues, but loves her daughter fiercely. When new neighbors move in, and Vita becomes entranced with Sunday's daughter, Dolly, it all becomes very difficult to handle.

This novel is well-written, and the author does a good job of building tension. I was bit concerned with some of the character development - perhaps a bit too stereotypical? And I thought the ending wrapped things up a bit too neatly. All in all, though, a good read.

Sunday Forrester is not like most people. She has her quirks about what she eats and drinks. She relies on an etiquette book for guidance on how to act in social situations and she lives by Sicilian folklore. No, she’s not like the other characters in this novel, and the biggest difference is not those quirks. I found it was in her capacity to deeply love, especially her rebellious teenage daughter who is drifting away from her. She’s different from the rich and glamorous new neighbors whom she at first becomes enamored with. They are really not the kind people they want Sunday to think they are. Without going into detail, I’ll just say that the only way I can describe them is as “ careless people “ (like Tom & Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby ) caring only for themselves and not who they trample on .

I was afraid for Sunday and for her daughter Dolly, wondering if what I suspected would come to fruition. I wanted to climb inside the pages and warn her . This is a heartbreaking story in many way as we learn of Sunday’s past and traumatic childhood and as we see what Sunday is now facing. In some ways, though it is a triumph of spirit since in spite of this. Sunday is self aware and comfortable in who she is and thrives . It’s hard to say more about this story without giving anything away. I’ll just say that this is a touching and enlightening story that deserved its place as a contender for the Booker Prize.

I wondered how the author could get us so intimately connected with Sunday who is autistic. I read in notes about Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow that like her protagonist, she is autistic. A thanks to her for opening the window into Sunny’s thoughts.

I received a copy of this book from Algonquin through NetGalley.

I loved this story!! This is told from the perspective of Sunday, a neurodivergent single mother living with her daughter Dolly in a rural English village that she grew up in. The author is autistic herself so she does a beautiful job of describing her life. Sunday lives in her childhood home and works in a greenhouse, which she finds calming, and has an etiquette book and a trove of old Sicilian folktales for comfort. She uses an etiquette book to help her learn how to deal with social situations. Into her life sweeps Vita and Rollo, a glamorous couple from London that move in next door and upend her carefully ordered life. Soon Sunday is feeling more accepted than before, and she and her daughter, Dolly are in and out of each other's houses. But soon Vita and Rollo reveal darker motives, for they have always wanted a daughter. This beautifully written story was full of heartbreak, love, and acceptance of others' differences.

Thanks to Netgalley, Algonquin, and Victoria Lloyd Barlow for this ARC

4.5 rounded up for this Booker longlister!

What started off as an endearing novel about female friendship, mother/daughter relationships, and neurodivergence suddenly accelerated into something more urgent and sinister — and I mean that in the best way possible. I stayed up until 2:30 AM finishing this one, if that tells you anything. Admittedly it was a smidge slow to start in my view, but once things started rolling there was no turning back! Really, really enjoyed this story and the tension and anger it evoked.

Sunday is neurodivergent in the same way as Molly [book:The Maid|55196813] is. However, she's a little more self aware of her differences. As someone with a constant inner monologue, hearing her inner thoughts put me at ease. On certain days, she eats white foods. She has an etiquette handbook. She is oddly into Sicilian folklore. It's a thing.

This cast of characters also includes Sunday's daughter, Dolly, and their new neighbors, London couple Vita and Rollo, who are honestly so pretentious. But, I suppose that's the stereotype. I enjoyed Sunday mimicking their accents in order to further understand them. Accents, and language, are something I enjoy about people.

Things appear carefully ordered in the first half, the half I enjoyed more. The second half is where Vita and Rollo begin to show their true colors. A childless couple, they begin to spend more and more time with Dolly, even beginning to think of her as their own. But, she's not their own. She has a mother...

I have to be honest. This book was hard to read. I found it boring. We are on the outside watching Sunday and her daughter live. I had to make myself read a little bit every day and it felt a tad torturous. I really tried to like it but it wasn't my cup of tea.

This book pushed some of my buttons. My emotions were all over the place as I read it.
I felt a lot of sympathy for Sunday who was who she was but was treated quite cruelly by most of the people around her.
I instantly disliked Vita and Rollo because I know their kind—users and moochers. They appropriated Dolly and I was furious.
But what happened at the end was the worst betrayal a daughter could do to a mother and what Dolly did was unforgivable and very cruel.
It takes all kinds of people to make this world, but the world could do without the Vitas.

This book reads very different to what I’m used to and I welcomed the challenge. It was such an interesting story and I found myself really caring and becoming protective of the protagonist, Sunday.

The author is autistic and that adds more depth to the story. I am a fast reader and I found myself slowing down and re-reading paragraphs because I felt my reading needed to match the narration.

Loved this book and would read this author again.

All The Little Bird-Hearts has you walking in the shoes of an autistic narrator, Sunday, a divorced mother of a teenage daughter, Dolly, who looks down on her mother as someone who should behave more “normally.” Sunday has a face incapable of showing emotion, yet, inside she has a fierce mother’s love for her daughter. She has trouble processing verbal and physical cues and knowing how to act around others. She relies on an old etiquette book for advice on appropriate behavior although sometimes being too literal in her translation she finds herself saying the wrong thing. She finds comfort in her diet which consists of white food and fizzy drinks. She works in a greenhouse on the farm of her snooty ex-in-laws and is content with her life. And then…

Vita enters her life. Vita and her husband, Rols, were staying in the house next door. Vita pops up on Sunday’s doorstep, flamboyant in voice, dress and style and makes herself at home. Sunday never having had anyone, except her dead sister, accept her and want to be around her was a dizzying phenomenon. Vita, childless, was anxious to meet the daughter Sunday talked about. Vita and Rols invited them to what was to become a weekly Friday dinner. Vita loved Dolly instantly. She lavished gifts and clothes and trips to London. Dolly was enchanted while Sunday was having trouble processing everything.

From the start there was foreboding and a sense of tension. Just as Sunday’s frustration is in not always being able to understand what was going on, I felt frustration for her. The author gave what I believe was a brilliant insight into what this particular autistic person was experiencing, I loved listening to her thoughts and how she processed information. The other characters, at times, seemed more stereotypical, the nouveau riche in-law, the hunky ex, and the neighbor with an agenda. While there were many laughs, some at Sunday’s expense, the epilogue was a bit too nice for the heartbreak and pain within the novel. Definitely one to read.

Thank you Algonquin and NetGalley for this advance read. All opinions are my own.

4.25⭐️ Quietly devastating.

Long-listed for The Booker Prize, All the Little Bird-Hearts tells the story of Sunday, a divorced autistic woman living a carefully structured life with her 16-year-old daughter, Dolly.

Enter Vita and Rollo, gregarious new next door neighbors, who quickly befriend Sunday and Dolly, pushing right through Sunday’s boundaries.

The story allows us to watch Sunday slowly awaken to the idea that she may not be the problem I’m their shifting dynamic, as we are given the unique perspective of being able to see Vita’s more nefarious intentions long before Sunday is able to understand them as such. This is sometimes frustrating and frequently devastating, as I wanted desperately to be able to step inside the story and help her. A very effectively empathetic tale.

Thank you Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow, Hachette Audio, Algonquin Books, and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

I had not understood, then, that people could be played like instruments to produce whatever sound you demanded of them.

from All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
Oh, I was mislead, too. Vita bursts upon the scene like a ray of sunshine that breaks through the clouds, eccentric and lively and unsettling all at once. Sunday was awestruck by her inclusion into Vita’s world, suddenly someone’s best friend.

Vita broke every rule. She showed up on Sunday’s doorstep in pajamas, or a in a fancy frock just back from the dry cleaners. She proclaimed to be enchanted by Sunday’s forthrightness. With her husband Rollo so often in town, she was lonely in their summer rental house. Now, she had Sunday.

Sunday was unused to this. Her mother had debased her, her husband divorced her, the world didn’t understand her anymore than she understood the world. As a person with autism, she struggled to translate the world, to understand. Now, she had a friend, and weekly Friday dinner invitations. It was one of Sunday’s “four acts of faith,” loving Vita, along with her love for her sister, her ex, and-her sixteen-year-old daughter, Dolly, who is old enough to condemn her mother’s strange ways.

Sunday was proud to introduce her friend Vita to her daughter. But Vita’s impact on Dolly was not something Sunday could have imagined. First, Vita has Dolly for over-nights, then she and Rollo ’employ’ her to help them with their business, and then there are trips to London and new clothes. They have money and charm and a lifestyle that is hard to resist.

The delight of the early chapters turn dark and ominous, and I was turning pages quite worried about what would be revealed.

The novel’s portrayal of Sunday’s experience and response to the world is wonderfully done. Sunday is struck by Vita’s way of talking, echoing her words in her head, which also offered a more vivid portrayal of Vita. Sunday’s inability to eat any food that isn’t white is countered by Rollo’s Harrod’s meals that lure Dolly, steak tartare and petits fours. Rollo pours Dolly rich red wines.

What starts as a lively friendship of acceptance is revealed to be a manipulation of the rich and charming.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.

A lovely novel with a unique perspective. Vita arrives with a boom into Sunday's ordered small life with her daughter Dolly. Sunday, who is autistic, has her routines (white food) and a job working at her ex-in laws greenhouse. Her main focus in life is Dolly, now 16 and headed, they hope, to Cambridge. Vita and Rollo, who rent the house next door, are down from London for reasons that are not entirely clear. Vita, dramatic and more than a little off kilt, takes to Sunday while Rollo pulls Dolly into his property business. There's a growing sense of danger as the relationships progress from Friday dinners to more through the summer but Sunday is happy that for once in her life she's seen for what she is and accommodations made without comment. What's wrong with Vita? Sunday can't see it but her colleague Mark senses all isn't well. No spoilers from me. If I have a quibble, it's with the ending, which felt inconsistent with what went before. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Terrific characters and a plot that pulled me in and had me turning the pages.

Written from the perspective of an autistic woman by an autistic woman, this debut centers on themes of family and love, trauma and prejudice. This witty, captivating and superbly written story is longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize.