This was a wonderful memoir to read. It is a collection of short essays, most previously published in various publications, assembled in chronological order to bring the reader along on a lifelong journey around the globe. It serves as a reminder of what home can mean to different people, along with the current and historical impact colonization can play in that meaning. I really enjoyed the writing and look forward to reading more from this author in the future.

*Provided a DRC (digital review copy) from the publisher for review. All opinions are my own.

A lovely collection of essays about growing up, departing, and being part of a family always in the midst of some form of migration. I am always on the lookout for thought-provoking personal essays that span geography, and Bird Milk and Mosquito Bones does not disappoint. Gorgeous cover and title too!

Bird Milk and Mosquito Bones was an excellent memoir. I loved the author's exploration of various cultures and countries and how they have influenced her life. I loved the chapters of cooking with her mother and exploring Kashmiri and Indian food. I appreciated her chapters of being different in school and finding friends during her many moves. I loved her journey of finding various career paths until she found one that best suited her.

I wanted to read this one, but I am unable to download the book because it is unfortunately archived.

This memoir, written by a woman with deep roots in the Kashmir region of India, was beautifully written and enjoyable light reading. She recounts of her time in America, India, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom, commenting on both her own life experiences and those of her close relatives. This memoir is thoughtful and thought provoking, and I learned about cultures previously unfamiliar to me.

Highly recommended for book clubs and those interested in cultures other than their own.

As a fan of memoirs, especially those of self-discovery, I was excited to read this memoir in essays. Mattoo’s vivid storytelling brought to life her experiences of traveling the world, sharing how each place shaped her and taught her to find a sense of home wherever she is. She covers familiar themes of teenage struggles, falling in love, parenthood, and complicated family dynamics, making the reader feel welcome. I didn’t always find myself eager to pick it up, but I still very much enjoyed Mattoo’s reflections on her life and the places she’s lived.

I DNF'd this one about 30% in. I didn't feel compelled to keep going. Not because it was bad, but because it just didn't capture me.

Overall this was an intriguing memoir of the life of Mattoo, as she fled her home in Kashmir. There was a lot of meaningful content in this book, and I appreciated the overall structure of essays. However, I felt like the flow was disrupted by the non-linear timeline. I have read previous memoirs where the timeline was non-linear and it worked, but it didn't quite hit the mark here.

I still am grateful to have read this book and would recommend it to those wanting to better understand the struggles and triumphs that Mattoo went through.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for a copy of this ARC!

This debut memoir in essays provides a glimpse into Mattoo’s life, which was constantly in motion as she and her family were forced to flee their beloved home in Kashmir amidst sociopolitical turmoil and navigate multiple global environments over time.

As a second generation South Asian American, many of Mattoo’s experiences resonated with me like living with hypervigilant parents, having (sometimes comical) family discussions around partnership/marriage, undergoing shifts in friendship dynamics, and striving for academic success above all else. I particularly enjoyed the sentiments Mattoo shared around books, which nearly mirror my own. More importantly, this collection provided an important and poignant reminder of the ways people of color struggle under the weight of others’ and cultural expectations yet are forced to be chronically resilient and advance forward.

“𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘶𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘐 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘳𝘦𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘢 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘋𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮 𝘮𝘺 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘥, 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘰 𝘣𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘵𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺…“

While I appreciated such clear, honest writing interspersed with humor, hope, and relatable moments, the overall flow of the book felt choppy. The essays are not chronologically structured (a pet peeve of mine) and often overlap in the time periods they cover. As with most essay collections, I found some more insightful and engaging than others. However, I still recommend picking this up for a nuanced exploration of home and identity.

Thank you to @netgalley and Alfred A. Knopf, Knopf Cooks, Pantheon Books, and Vintage Anchor Books for a digital ARC! 3.5 stars!

"The tap water in my current, grown-up family home is also hard, reminiscent of that summer. I use a built-in water filter most of the time, but if I ever make the lazy mistake of not wanting to walk downstairs, one sip from the wrong faucet takes me right back to the half-finished bathroom in Delhi, its tiny window, a spindly ray of sunlight worming its way through chemical clouds to illuminate one corner of that cursed space." (loc. 2255*)

There's a book that I've been meaning to read for a while, titled "Home Keeps Moving"—it's about growing up as a third-culture kid. The title seems apt for Mattoo as well: growing up in Kashmir and London and Saudi Arabia and the US, home kept moving. Home was meant to be Kashmir, where her parents were working from a distance to build a home and a life to move back to—but conflict devastated the region and devastated their chances of calling Kashmir home again. So home kept moving.

Mattoo writes early on about thinking that she could not be a writer because that conflict in Kashmir was not the story she wanted to tell: "...I didn't write at all, about anything, for a long time. I didn't know I was allowed. Brown pain, I learned as a small child in Western libraries, was interesting. Brown joy, brown ennui, spunky brown girl detectives—nowhere to be found. So, even though I worshipped books, I thought writing them was for other people." (loc. 234) So this is not a book about that conflict, but rather an exploration, in essays, of a childhood in and between places and an adulthood figuring out how to settle into her skin.

It took me a while to get into this, largely because it's marketed as a memoir and so I was expecting a more...oh, not a more linear narrative necessarily, but I didn't realize until well into the book that I was actually reading a collection of (mostly but not entirely chronological) essays. Still memoir, sure, but memoir-in-essays just requires a slightly different brain space. But with expectations adjusted, it's a beautiful work—Mattoo is so simultaneously unapologetic and wry about herself as a child in particular, describing herself as smart and stubborn and uncompromising in ways that did not always make her life easy. Some of the essays are better fits for me than others (I do tend to prefer those ones about childhood, though the way Mattoo talks about her family pressing her now-husband-then-boyfriend about marriage makes me laugh, because my Indian boyfriend's parents do the same thing on the regular), but they're exacting and with a wonderful sense for story. Well worth the read.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Impactful, strong writing. What a rich, fascinating life Mattoo has lived - I appreciated the way she took her readers along her journey.

I liked but didn't love the book. It was really a collection of essays which is fine but I think it should have been tweaked to have it flow like a more traditional memoir. I felt like she didn't really fully explore some of the topics and events as I would have expected. I think it should have been presented chronologically at the very least. It was jarring to read as-is.

A really lovely memoir-in-essays from a writer who has lived all over the globe, and as a result has developed toughness, tenderness, and humor to create a sense of self and sense of home wherever she is.

My immediate desire was to look up Kashmir, this idyllic place that her family was forced to leave forever when she was a child. Kashmir is a region at the base of the Himalayas, with parts controlled/influenced by India, Pakistan, China, and even Afghanistan. Knowing this, we can understand it to be high conflict and highly militarized, but Mattoo let us in on a much richer history.

It piqued my interest that a place like this once existed, now doesn’t, and feels nearly unknown to the average American. I wanted to learn more. Later, she made me want to move to Rome. Or perhaps London. No so much Riyadh. I loved her family history - the story of her grandparents, aunts and uncles, parents, and little brother.

Despite the variety of global residences, Mattoo’s other stories were highly relatable: 1990s teen angst, learning to live with roommates, falling in love, and becoming a mother. The first and last essays were my favorite though, where Mattoo dug into the forces that led to her family’s around-the-world migration.

People with the most resilience are often able to make everyone in their presence feel comfortable and welcome, which is just what Mattoo accomplishes in this book.

Thank you Knopf for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Priyanka Mattoo has written a sweet book about her life and her beloved Kashmir. Lucky for Priyanka she was born and raised partly in Kashmir along with a large extended family. With opportunity knocking, her father left for England with a job in hand as a doctor. Her mother joins later after she finishes her Phd, leaving behind her secure nest of relatives and childcare. At first London seems so strange but slowly her mother ventures out more, cooks more interesting foods, and Priyanka goes to school. Trouble strikes in Kashmir and the family scatters around the world, never really able to return and slowly this Kashmiri connection is hanging by a thread.

Her family are travelers and our author lives in many places around the world such as Saudi Arabia, Michigan, Rome and finally settles in Los Angeles. She writes lovingly of her family’s quirks, how they handle life and her lack of being able to speak her mother tongue. As she now has children, she wonders how she can keep her culture alive in America as Kashmir is more than just rituals and food.

The book is a lovefest for her life, her luck and her family. Mattoo is successful in so many areas, from talent agent to podcaster to effortless Indian cook. Now she is a writer, and we look forward to more.

I received a copy of "Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones." By Priyanka Matoo. the author writes of the many countries she has lived during her life. Because of living in countries like India, Saudi Arabia, England, Rome and several states in the USA. She has learned to speak several languages. Had to live amongst different cultures. She also writes of her relatives including a beloved grandmother, Her little brother and her parents. And also many friends she has made over the years. She has lived around the world when her parents would move and when she studied in Rome and the USA such as Michigan.
She writes of her different careers over the years the good and the bad. I liked the author's book. I found it a bit frustrating thought when her chapters went all over the place in time. Like going from her childhood then skip to recent years then go back years ago. but is just my frustrations. I would give this book a 3.5.