A review by serendipitysbooks
Bird Life by Anna Smaill

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 Bird Life is an exploration of grief. When Dinah's twin brother dies by suicide she tries to escape her grief by moving to Japan to teach English. While there she meets Yasuko, an older colleague who is dealing with her own grief - alienation from her son which is connected to her special power, a power her family treat liek a mental illness, of being able to communicate with animals. Smaill captured the Tokyo setting and the minutae of the women's daily lives perfectly; in many ways this read like a Japanese novel. The plot such as it is - this is more a novel of the mind and of interior thoughts - does tend to wander and has a bit of a dreamlike quality to it.Yasuko's powers and the ghost of Dinah's brother lent it an other worldly feel. Sometimes I loved the writing; other times it felt a little overdone. While this wasn't a total win for me , it did leave me keen to explore the author's backlist. 
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