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staceyinthesticks's review against another edition
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Miscarriage, Slavery, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, and Pregnancy
Subject of slavery is modern slaverydeedireads's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.
TL;DR REVIEW:
I liked Songbirds, although The Beekeeper of Aleppo is still my favorite of Lefteri’s. Still, I think this book does good things and will appeal to lots of different types of readers.
For you if: You want fast-paced contemporary fiction with beautiful sentences and a substantive topic.
FULL REVIEW:
First, thank you to Ballantine for the digital review copy of this book!
I jumped at the chance to read this one after loving Lefteri’s The Beekeeper of Aleppo, which won the 2020 Aspen Words literary prize. While I still think Beekeeper is my favorite of the two, Songbirds was a moving, well-written novel with good characters and plenty of momentum.
Inspired by true events, Songbirds takes place in Cyprus and starts when a Sri Lankan domestic worker named Nisha disappears. The novel is told in alternating points of view between Yiannis, her boyfriend, who is also trying to extricate himself from an underground poaching operation; and Petra, her employer, a single mother who takes it upon herself to search for Nisha (and begins to peel back a fog of grief and layers of her privilege as she does).
So on the one hand, this book is a tender depiction of the erasure and strife of immigrant domestic workers in this part of the world; on the other, it’s a mystery: what happened to Nisha? I think a lot of different types of readers will like it. Petra’s journey uncovering her own prejudice occasionally feels elementary, but I appreciated the way it intersected with her grief as a widow and her resulting struggle as a mother. I also wanted to shake Yiannis, but despite his weakness he does have an inherently good heart. Lefteri’s sentences are really beautiful, and the audiobook (which features two voice actors for our two narrators) was well done.
I think this book could be a good gateway novel if you’re looking to move from mystery/thriller genre fiction into a more contemporary fiction space, or it could be a good quick read with teeth if you spend most of your time in literary fiction. I’m glad I read it.
TL;DR REVIEW:
I liked Songbirds, although The Beekeeper of Aleppo is still my favorite of Lefteri’s. Still, I think this book does good things and will appeal to lots of different types of readers.
For you if: You want fast-paced contemporary fiction with beautiful sentences and a substantive topic.
FULL REVIEW:
First, thank you to Ballantine for the digital review copy of this book!
I jumped at the chance to read this one after loving Lefteri’s The Beekeeper of Aleppo, which won the 2020 Aspen Words literary prize. While I still think Beekeeper is my favorite of the two, Songbirds was a moving, well-written novel with good characters and plenty of momentum.
Inspired by true events, Songbirds takes place in Cyprus and starts when a Sri Lankan domestic worker named Nisha disappears. The novel is told in alternating points of view between Yiannis, her boyfriend, who is also trying to extricate himself from an underground poaching operation; and Petra, her employer, a single mother who takes it upon herself to search for Nisha (and begins to peel back a fog of grief and layers of her privilege as she does).
So on the one hand, this book is a tender depiction of the erasure and strife of immigrant domestic workers in this part of the world; on the other, it’s a mystery: what happened to Nisha? I think a lot of different types of readers will like it. Petra’s journey uncovering her own prejudice occasionally feels elementary, but I appreciated the way it intersected with her grief as a widow and her resulting struggle as a mother. I also wanted to shake Yiannis, but despite his weakness he does have an inherently good heart. Lefteri’s sentences are really beautiful, and the audiobook (which features two voice actors for our two narrators) was well done.
I think this book could be a good gateway novel if you’re looking to move from mystery/thriller genre fiction into a more contemporary fiction space, or it could be a good quick read with teeth if you spend most of your time in literary fiction. I’m glad I read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Miscarriage, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Kidnapping