Reviews with content warning for Animal death - Sångfåglar

Apparently it seems that I'm leaning towards hard-hitting literary fiction in Q4 2021 and I'm okay with that.

This is the first time in a long time that I've grabbed a piece of paper to start writing thoughts down only 20% into it.

<i>Songbirds</i> is heartbreaking and evocative and I know I'll be thinking about this one for a long time. As someone who hasn't read either of Christy Lefteri's previous works, I'm glad I picked this one up first.

Somehow, Lefteri managed to craft an astounding story inspired by real events in Cyprus surrounding how foreign domestic workers are treated in Cyprus by the middle class families they are employed by and by the police.

Nisha is a domestic worker from Sri Lanka that has been working for Petra for 9 years when she suddenly goes missing on a Sunday night. We then follow her employer Petra and her lover Yannis on their journey to attempt to get justice for her in a country that has no love for foreign workers.

I found myself hooked from the start and was overall satisfied with the ending that seemed tied up to me. Make no mistake, like me you may be incredibly infuriated with Nisha's employer at the beginning of the book, but unlike one other person in this story (Mrs Kostas), Petra does end up having some character development and ends up seeing Nisha as an actual person instead of just a "Shadow of myself". Shocking that your domestic worker will have life outside of caring for your daughter Petra, so shocking.

Personally, I am wondering if there is symbolism between the songbirds and the foreign domestic workers. As in in Cyprus, they both seem to be 'delicacies' that only the middle class and up can afford, but they don't care enough to take care of them properly to keep them safe.

What is keeping me from rating it five stars is the pacing between the two POVs as well as the lack of plot movement surrounding Nisha herself. I just wanted the pacing to be a little quicker in Yannis'. I also had an issue with some dialogue being repeated when Petra was having a flashback multiple times on a bus ride.

I think that this would make a great book for a book club because just by looking at the DNFs, the one start ratings, and the two ratings, it may lead to a great discussion.

On the topic of DNFing, if you do decide to pick this one up but decide that it is not for you, please at least consider flipping to the author's note at the end.

I highly recommend this, but please be aware of the following trigger warnings (one of which I haven't seen anyone else mention in their reviews because everyone seems to be focused on the song birds):

Content Warnings

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad medium-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? It's complicated

4.75

Songbirds is a book that really captured my attention and my heart. Inspired by real events (which Lefteri explains in her author’s note) this book is a probing examination of the plight of migrant domestic workers. Although set in Cyprus I’m pretty confident it’s themes are internationally applicable.

Nisha, a Sri Lankan national, works as a maid and nanny for Petra, looking after the house and caring for 9 year old Aliki. When she disappears the authorities refuse to investigate so Petra and Yiannis, Petra’s tenant and Nisha’s secret boyfriend, search by themselves and soon discover that Nisha isn’t the only migrant worker who has recently disappeared.

Lefteri did a wonderful job highlighting the conditions faced by migrant domestic workers. We see the derogatory way women talk about their maids, the fact they know little to nothing about those they’ve hired to raise their children, the unnecessarily restrictive labour conditions - having a boyfriend isn’t permitted, the long hours, the heavy agency fees that must be paid back. Women are especially vulnerable to sexual abuse and the police have little interest in their welfare.

Yiannis earns some of his income from the illegal capture of migrating songbirds, which are considered a culinary delicacy. As a keen birder I appreciated the way this book drew attention to the issue. The graphic details did make for tough reading, however. The parallels between the birds and the migrant workers was clear, the former being an apt metaphor for the latter.

Over the course of the book we built up a fairly comprehensive picture of Nisha, but it is all through the eyes of others. I really appreciated the ending, where we get to hear from Nisha herself, in the form of diary entries to her beloved daughter. Hearing from her directly was a nice counter to the system which attempted to keep migrant domestic workers quiet and anonymous, to depersonalise them.

If I was to find fault it would be the dialogue which felt a little unnatural, possibly too clunky and forced in an effort to ensure the message wasn’t missed. But this is a relatively minor quibble about an otherwise excellent book.

Content Warnings

deedireads's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

TL;DR REVIEW:

I liked Songbirds, although The Beekeeper of Aleppo is still my favorite of Lefteri’s. Still, I think this book does good things and will appeal to lots of different types of readers.

For you if: You want fast-paced contemporary fiction with beautiful sentences and a substantive topic.

FULL REVIEW:

First, thank you to Ballantine for the digital review copy of this book!

I jumped at the chance to read this one after loving Lefteri’s The Beekeeper of Aleppo, which won the 2020 Aspen Words literary prize. While I still think Beekeeper is my favorite of the two, Songbirds was a moving, well-written novel with good characters and plenty of momentum.

Inspired by true events, Songbirds takes place in Cyprus and starts when a Sri Lankan domestic worker named Nisha disappears. The novel is told in alternating points of view between Yiannis, her boyfriend, who is also trying to extricate himself from an underground poaching operation; and Petra, her employer, a single mother who takes it upon herself to search for Nisha (and begins to peel back a fog of grief and layers of her privilege as she does).

So on the one hand, this book is a tender depiction of the erasure and strife of immigrant domestic workers in this part of the world; on the other, it’s a mystery: what happened to Nisha? I think a lot of different types of readers will like it. Petra’s journey uncovering her own prejudice occasionally feels elementary, but I appreciated the way it intersected with her grief as a widow and her resulting struggle as a mother. I also wanted to shake Yiannis, but despite his weakness he does have an inherently good heart. Lefteri’s sentences are really beautiful, and the audiobook (which features two voice actors for our two narrators) was well done.

I think this book could be a good gateway novel if you’re looking to move from mystery/thriller genre fiction into a more contemporary fiction space, or it could be a good quick read with teeth if you spend most of your time in literary fiction. I’m glad I read it.

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