A review by dlberglund
Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
3.0
This is a tricky book to write a review on. It is layered, complex, brilliant, and frustrating. A blurb on the inside jacket both gives away too much and misleads. There were pieces of genius in here, threads of nuanced explorations of race, gender, family, parenthood, friendship, self-image, and identity. Many thoughtful questions are posed, but I didn't find many answers. For some, this is purposeful and reasonable- all questions about race, family, and identity cannot be answered in a normal sized book. Other questions left lingering, however, leave me feeling completely unsatisfied.
Boy, Snow, and Bird are all the names of female main characters in this book. Sections of the book are told from Boy and Bird's perspectives, but we only get pieces of Snow's inner self through letters and interactions with others. I didn't feel that any questions related to Snow were really resolved at the end, which disappointed me. (Is she really the fairest of them all, or just a pretty pretender?) There were many other secondary characters, some of whom were important, and some of whom flitted through as social acquaintances that showed up at parties. It was often difficult for me to keep them apart and know which ones I was supposed to really hold on to. (Who was Ted again?) Those would likely be my only critiques of this thoughtful book if the final 30 pages had been different. As written, they were perplexing and called into question the validity of the whole novel. It is hard for me to think of a novel with a more awkward, problematic,and out of nowhere ending.
Boy, Snow, and Bird are all the names of female main characters in this book. Sections of the book are told from Boy and Bird's perspectives, but we only get pieces of Snow's inner self through letters and interactions with others. I didn't feel that any questions related to Snow were really resolved at the end, which disappointed me. (Is she really the fairest of them all, or just a pretty pretender?) There were many other secondary characters, some of whom were important, and some of whom flitted through as social acquaintances that showed up at parties. It was often difficult for me to keep them apart and know which ones I was supposed to really hold on to. (Who was Ted again?) Those would likely be my only critiques of this thoughtful book if the final 30 pages had been different. As written, they were perplexing and called into question the validity of the whole novel. It is hard for me to think of a novel with a more awkward, problematic,and out of nowhere ending.