nappower's review
4.0
lyrical & lush. about finding one's center in a way, i thought it was a chewy read & for the most part pretty great.
loved the author's treatment of food & wrote about it here - http://www.escapingwords.com/2011/10/birds-of-paradise.html
recommend for people who like food writing; family stories; characters' introspection.
loved the author's treatment of food & wrote about it here - http://www.escapingwords.com/2011/10/birds-of-paradise.html
recommend for people who like food writing; family stories; characters' introspection.
giannaareneee's review
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
i think the book was well written. i didn’t love the constant references to side character’s skin color and how race was discussed in the book. i understand the purpose of showing how diverse Miami is, but some moments of the book seemed unnecessary as well as some characters.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder and Suicide
annaelisereads's review against another edition
4.0
Beautiful and heartbreaking story of a family trying to stay together in Miami. Pastry chefs - there is definitely delicious and loving descriptions of cookies, cakes, and eclairs. My favorite line in the book: the daughter, Felice, remembers the time she broke a beautiful bowl and burst into unstoppable tears. Her mother finds her, grabs a big shard, smashes it to pieces and comforts Felice while telling her "See? We broke it together."
lazygal's review against another edition
4.0
Set in the time just around Hurricane Katrina in Miami, this novel about a family that has fallen apart really resonated with me. Told from the viewpoints of the four members of the Muir family, you see how Felice's disappearance has affected each of them. Avis, Brian and Stanley are still shocked and in intense pain five years later - they have problems with intimacy and trust. Felice is living essentially on the streets, still grappling with the guilt that drove her away from home.
Slowly, over the course of this book, all four find ways to come to some sort of internal resolution and to start living again. The metaphor of Katrina and the recovery from the damage done is an apt one: any family that has faced this sort of breakdown must feel as though they are in the midst of a hurricane.
While not marketed to the YA audience, this book will appeal to both adults and teens.
ARC provided by publisher.
Slowly, over the course of this book, all four find ways to come to some sort of internal resolution and to start living again. The metaphor of Katrina and the recovery from the damage done is an apt one: any family that has faced this sort of breakdown must feel as though they are in the midst of a hurricane.
While not marketed to the YA audience, this book will appeal to both adults and teens.
ARC provided by publisher.
krissyronan's review against another edition
1.0
Beautifully written. In 100 pages, I learned tons about some primary characters and the setting of the book. Unfortunately, nothing actually happened. Painfully slow plot development. I got impatient, found some spoilers online and am moving on.
kellyhitchcock's review against another edition
5.0
I absolutely adored this book. The prose is striking and precise, and beautiful. It's a mystery, but not the type of mystery you'd think. Each chapter is like peeling back the onion of what happened to this once-picture-perfect family, revealing more and more bits of beautiful detail about each character's painful history. Abu-Jaber's amazingly detailed description of simple things like a sugary pastry made me feel like I could smell it baking in the oven in the next room.
If you like scantily detailed stories with lots of action, this is not the story for you. If, on the other hand, you enjoy a painfully introspective look into the human psyche, you'll probably enjoy the hell out of this book. It didn't end like I expected it to, but I like a bit on the unexpected every now and then.
If you like scantily detailed stories with lots of action, this is not the story for you. If, on the other hand, you enjoy a painfully introspective look into the human psyche, you'll probably enjoy the hell out of this book. It didn't end like I expected it to, but I like a bit on the unexpected every now and then.
carlymford's review
4.0
A girl runs away from her family when she is thirteen as a self-inflicted punishment. Her family is devastated.
I liked this book. I think the family was idiotic (if your child is running away you take them to a specialist, you take them to a mental hospital, god, something!) but I loved the descriptions of Miami, of the different cultures, even of the mother's baking. I thought the over-descriptions of the the dad's job was so purposeful and gave the reader a good sense of who he was. The brother was maybe a bit much, I get it: corporations are evil and he had such a earnest soul, but he basically opened a Whole Foods... The mother, well, she was so helpless but also not. I liked that not every bit of the book was fast-paced and exciting. I liked that pretty much nothing was sexy or glamorous. The sexy glamorous people were ephemeral, like all beauty. They were so young and I'm a high school teacher, so I know how much kids feel their immortality.
I liked this book. I think the family was idiotic (if your child is running away you take them to a specialist, you take them to a mental hospital, god, something!) but I loved the descriptions of Miami, of the different cultures, even of the mother's baking. I thought the over-descriptions of the the dad's job was so purposeful and gave the reader a good sense of who he was. The brother was maybe a bit much, I get it: corporations are evil and he had such a earnest soul, but he basically opened a Whole Foods... The mother, well, she was so helpless but also not. I liked that not every bit of the book was fast-paced and exciting. I liked that pretty much nothing was sexy or glamorous. The sexy glamorous people were ephemeral, like all beauty. They were so young and I'm a high school teacher, so I know how much kids feel their immortality.
wordnerdy's review against another edition
4.0
http://wordnerdy.blogspot.com/2011/09/2011-book-226.html
maedo's review
2.0
Diana Abu-Jaber's writing hits all of the marks for high praise in this book about a family coping with the loss of their teenage daughter, a junior high school runaway reaching her 18th birthday and living on the streets by choice instead of opting to stay comfortable in her Floridian upper middle class life.
There are lush foodie descriptions, of the cakes and pastries baked by the girl's wealthy mother and equally, of the organic foods sold and prepared by the proletarian (also by choice) brother. There are white people trying to reconcile their privilege with "streetwise" blacks and Hispanics everywhere, in bordering on "magical Negro"-storyline sorts of ways. (It's all black people that help the white people reconcile their awkward feelings. One of the black persons is Haitian and casts a spell of sorts for a white character.)
Characters get sexually assaulted. Characters try to act blase about affairs. Characters confront their fears about aging and their angst about what it is to be a good parent. If I were feeling crankier I might put a "zzzz" there, because these are all the hallmarks of Very Serious Literature and many of them are without consequence in Birds of Paradise.
There is nothing technically wrong with this book; it's even very touching in places. And, like I said, immaculately polished. But there is also a noticeable lack of levity. Tensions build, people make ill-advised decisions, people go missing and get hurt. And then, to hammer the point home, the climax is a literal storm: Florida's chunk of Hurricane Katrina. Not as devastating as it was to New Orleans but enough to shake up the world of the book.
This kind of sober, relentless, onward march of pain & misery makes the book read all dirge-like. It's exactly the kind of lit that gets those blurbs with a million synonyms for "gorgeous prose" from other writers, but that few non-professional readers actually want to read. Given the choice between a grilled cheese sandwich and a "tahini, African honey, and organic banana sandwich on whole wheat bread," I'm sorry, but I'm probably going to take the grilled cheese every time. The grilled cheese sounds a lot more fun.
There are lush foodie descriptions, of the cakes and pastries baked by the girl's wealthy mother and equally, of the organic foods sold and prepared by the proletarian (also by choice) brother. There are white people trying to reconcile their privilege with "streetwise" blacks and Hispanics everywhere, in bordering on "magical Negro"-storyline sorts of ways. (It's all black people that help the white people reconcile their awkward feelings. One of the black persons is Haitian and casts a spell of sorts for a white character.)
Characters get sexually assaulted. Characters try to act blase about affairs. Characters confront their fears about aging and their angst about what it is to be a good parent. If I were feeling crankier I might put a "zzzz" there, because these are all the hallmarks of Very Serious Literature and many of them are without consequence in Birds of Paradise.
There is nothing technically wrong with this book; it's even very touching in places. And, like I said, immaculately polished. But there is also a noticeable lack of levity. Tensions build, people make ill-advised decisions, people go missing and get hurt. And then, to hammer the point home, the climax is a literal storm: Florida's chunk of Hurricane Katrina. Not as devastating as it was to New Orleans but enough to shake up the world of the book.
This kind of sober, relentless, onward march of pain & misery makes the book read all dirge-like. It's exactly the kind of lit that gets those blurbs with a million synonyms for "gorgeous prose" from other writers, but that few non-professional readers actually want to read. Given the choice between a grilled cheese sandwich and a "tahini, African honey, and organic banana sandwich on whole wheat bread," I'm sorry, but I'm probably going to take the grilled cheese every time. The grilled cheese sounds a lot more fun.