Magical Love Story: When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo

-


Goodreads Synopsis

The St. Bernard women have lived in Morne Marie, the house on top of a hill outside Port Angeles, for generations. Built from the ashes of a plantation that enslaved their ancestors, it has come to shelter a lineage that is bonded by much more than blood. One woman in each generation of St. Bernards is responsible for the passage of the city's souls into the afterlife. But Yejide's relationship with her mother, Petronella, has always been contorted by anger and neglect, which Petronella stubbornly carries to her death bed, leaving Yejide unprepared to fulfill her destiny.


Raised in the countryside by a devout Rastafarian mother, Darwin has always abided by the religious commandment not to interact with death. He has never been to a funeral, much less seen a dead body. But when his ailing mother can no longer work and the only job he can find is grave digging, he must betray the life she built for him in order to provide for them both. Newly shorn of his dreadlocks and his past and determined to prove himself, Darwin finds himself adrift in a city electric with possibility and danger.

Yejide and Darwin will meet inside the gates of Fidelis, Port Angeles's largest and oldest cemetery, where the dead lie uneasy in their graves and a reckoning with fate beckons them both. A masterwork of lush imagination and immersive lyricism, When We Were Birds is a spellbinding novel about inheritance, loss, and love's seismic power to heal.

My Glowing Review

This magical story takes us to Trinidad and Tobago where we meet our main characters, Yejide and Darwin. Yejide has a difficult, to say the least, relationship with her mother. Her family has ancestral traditions that she struggles to abide by due to her dysfunctional relations with her mother. Darwin, on the other hand, had a strong relationship with his mother that he struggles with due to their religious traditions that he has to abandon. Darwin and Yejide meet at the cemetery gates and their relationship blossoms, a sweet romance. I love the language used in the novel and the magical components. One can learn much about Rastafarian culture and the culture of Trinidad and Tobago & the descriptions of the island were gorgeously described. Enjoyed this one a lot and read for Net Galley.

⭐⭐⭐⭐


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Heartbreaking Historical Thriller: The Last House on the Street by Diane Chamberlain

-
Image
  This is a story about civil rights, discrimination, voter right suppression, young 'forbidden' love, and dark family secrets. Kayla is a young widowed mother that moves into a home built and designed by her and her late spouse. In her time line, this is a dual time line story, she learns of the dark secrets buried on her land that relate to Ellie's storyline. Ellie, a young white woman living in North Caroline in the 1960's, joins the work of SCOPE project in memory of her late aunt. SCOPE is a civil rights group working to educate and encourage voter registration in North Carolina. Ellie was a wonderful character full of strength and courage. I enjoyed reading about Ellie's blossoming relationship with Win and was deeply saddened by it's outcome. I was also deeply saddened by Ellie's family and friends, I won't say more (spoilers). My criticism, the dual stories were not equal in measure or development, Kayla's story was more of a vehicle to Ellie...
Read more

A Review: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

-
Image
"The world was filled with ghosts. We were a haunted country in a haunted world." "You can't get over things you did to other people as easily as the things they did to you." This is (so far) my favorite book by Louise Erdrich. The story centers around Tookie, a bookstore clerk, that is being haunted by a former customer, Flora. Throughout the story, Tookie tries to solve the mystery of the haunting (which is a fascinating and intricate story) while dealing with the horrible events of 2020. The Sentence is a poignant title as it refers to the sentence that Tookie serves in prison, sentences that we place upon ourselves, and the sentences imprinted in the books, which were a saving grace for Tookie.   I loved the character building, the relationships between the characters, and the insight into indigenous history. This is one of those novels that one should revisit as a reference to the 2020s and how the period impacted society, especially the indigenous people ...
Read more
-
Image
I lived in Florida quite close to USF, when the discovery of the horrors at Dozier were unearthed. So, I was quite interested in reading Colson Whitehead's fictionalized account of Dozier. I must agree that most of what I read in the papers about Dozier were accounts from the white survivors. I had not read a great deal about young black males that were incarcerated at Dozier. The story follows a young man, Elwood Curtis, who always did the right thing and believed in the Civil Rights Movement and the words of MLK Jr., but made a poor decision and ended up at Dozier. While at Dozier, we learn of the brutality and the downright depravity of these so-called educators. I had such a difficult time stomaching what I was reading, it is not for the faint of heart, but I do believe that if we do not know this history and learn from it, we can and do repeat such atrocities. Since this is a fictionalized account, I will at some point read a few non fiction accounts of Dozier and other 's...
Read more