Other Birds

Product Information

Her published books to date are: Garden Spells (2007), The Sugar Queen (2008), The Girl Who Chased the Moon (2010), The Peach Keeper (2011), Lost Lake (2014), First Frost (2015) and Other Birds (August 30, 2022).

About 1 — Sarah Addison Allen

Her books to date are: Garden Spells (2007), The Sugar Queen (2008), The Girl Who Chased the Moon (2010), The Peach Keeper (2011), Lost Lake (2014), First Frost (2015), and Other Birds (2022). The area had been made famous by a world-class novel, Sweet Mallow, written fifty years ago by the rarely seen Roscoe Avanger. years old Zoey, talking with her invisible bird Pigeon moves to this place to experience the life of her mother left for her as soon as she got her trust fund, leaving his neglectful father and criticizing stepmother behind.Zoe is an energetic ball of charm who’s determined to bring these virtual strangers together, if she can get her often petulant invisible bird, Pigeon, to stop interfering.

Other Birds - Sarah Addison Allen - St. Martin’s Press Other Birds - Sarah Addison Allen - St. Martin’s Press

There is a mystery within the pages of this book, but to me, this is more about the lives of the characters, the magic of those living and the memories of those in-between.

It had been happening all his life, and what had been a terrifying experience for him as a boy no longer surprised him. When you find an author you love, and they publish a new book after many years away, cracking open the first page is like sinking into the arms of an old friend. I really enjoyed this book, full of quirky characters who live on the margins of life for different reasons, and who are all living (or have lived) at the small 5-unit Dellawisp apartment building. These characters are real, raw, somewhat broken, somewhat healed, with fractured pasts and working toward new beginnings. My main difficulty with the story was that it was a bit heavy-handed on the bad parenting theme, which made it a little less believable, but then again, Frasier did say the residents were picked for a reason, so I guess the similar backgrounds were intentional?

Other Birds: A Novel - Sarah Addison Allen - Google Books

Allen continues to serve heaping helpings of the fantastic and the familiar in fiction she describes as "Southern-fried magic realism. We'll meet the other residents of Dellawisp Condos including the turquoise blue birds that fly freely throughout the grounds. After graduation, her big break occurred in 2007 with the publication of her first mainstream novel, Garden Spells, a modern-day fairy tale about an enchanted apple tree and the family of North Carolina women who tend it. The story takes place in Mallow Island, a tourist area in the Carolinas whose history is unique in many ways. Zoey and her invisible bird, Pigeon are headed to Mallow Island to the condo Zoey’s mom left her when she passed away.The main character is an insufferable "quirky" girl who is innocent and always happy (it's not 2011 anymore, can we stop with this trope.