The Bird King in Around the Year in 52 Books

Mar 30, 2019 CrystalIsReading on StoryGraph rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, it-s-not-you-it-s-me, fiction, lgbtqia-gender, fantasy, advance-copies, feminist, diversity, bildungsromans, muslim

I’m not even sure what I just read. I mean, I know what I just read. I understood all the words, and they were well written and very vivid. The characters were well-drawn and real and complex and grew so very much throughout the book. The setting, especially at the beginning of the book, was fascinating and rich with history and atmosphere. I loved the historical perspective on Muslim Spain, even if it was at the bitter end for that history. Even the cover is art is very fitting–beautiful but ye I’m not even sure what I just read. I mean, I know what I just read. I understood all the words, and they were well written and very vivid. The characters were well-drawn and real and complex and grew so very much throughout the book. The setting, especially at the beginning of the book, was fascinating and rich with history and atmosphere. I loved the historical perspective on Muslim Spain, even if it was at the bitter end for that history. Even the cover is art is very fitting–beautiful but yet weird and difficult to define. But somehow it just wasn’t enough for me.

So I think I wasn’t quite the correct audience for this book. I know G. Willow Wilson from her work on Ms. Marvel comics, which I love. This is a different, more literary beast, as reflected in the huge amount of character introspection and dialogue, especially after the first section of the book. There’s beauty and magic and strength and hope. But it’s also a sad, reflective book, with a lot of struggle and loss, and only hope to get one through to the ending, such as it is.

Fatima, the center of the story, coping with the attachment issues that make sense given her early life, and struggling to become strong and competent and independent for the first time–to be a free adult–still isn’t necessarily very likable. Beautiful and complex and stubbornly persistent. But also frustrating and difficult to connect with. Hassan, her super gay, magical-map-making best friend, is more straightforward and likable–perhaps a result of having had a more normal childhood? Their platonic love for each other is strong and enduring, but filled with so much petty fighting that they become tiresome at times. And then there’s Luz. Luz is beautiful and unworldly and terrible and seductive and terrifying in her holy madness. I couldn’t decide if I felt that she was a realistic portrayal of the madness of the Inquisition or too much to be believed, even within the parameters of a semi-magical world. Other characters, whose names I’ll avoid for spoilers sake, were rich and complex too–realistic, not always sympathetic. And the djinn–I loved the wicked, wonderful, mesmerizing, sometimes surprisingly helpful djinn in all their iterations. They were perhaps my favorite part of this story.

I appreciated the diversity within the book. Muslims, Christians, northern Europeans, Middle Eastern, gay and straight, and even an African character or two and a little person. The main characters were all pretty white, but overall the diversity felt organic and effortless. I’d never heard of Circassian women before, and found that history, especially what I researched outside the book, to be fascinating. And I loved the strength of the platonic male-female friendship depicted in this story. However, I didn’t particularly like the depiction of an almost rape–if those things trigger you, skip that section or the book. Once again, not badly written. It just made me queasy in its realism.

So despite individual highlights within the book, diverse, well-written characters, and some fascinating settings and historical information, at the end I felt myself wondering why I’d read it. Was that all there was? I can’t ask what the point was, because that was clearly growth and self-knowledge and building relationships and defeating intolerance. But why did I read it? (OK, I started it because it sounded fascinating and I loved Wilson’s Ms. Marvel, and I finished it because it was approved for Netgally and I wanted to be able to complete a review for it. But that doesn’t seem like good enough reasons for reading a whole book if it leaves me cold in the end.) I don’t think this is a bad book, and I think if you prefer your writing to be more literary, heavy in introspection and dialogue and ideas, feminist and LGBTQ-affirming, with some historical magical realism tossed in, that you might like this very much. I didn’t, and I’m sad about that.

Thank you, NetGalley, for letting me read an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion. ...more

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