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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
Cool idea but there were some problems. Full review to come.
Full review from blog
ARC provided by NetGalley and Titan Books. Thanks.
The official blurb: „Many millennia after the fall of Eden, Adam, the first man in creation, still walks the Earth – exhausted by the endless death and destruction, he is a shadow of his former hope and glory.”
After walking the Earth for millenia, Adam is almost a shadow of himself. He is still stronger than your average man, and yeah, he’s immortal, but mentally he is almost ready to give up on everything. After a violent incident while in the employ of a Hollywood star, Adam is contacted by one of the birds from the Garden and he is given an assignment.
The Animals from the Garden in this story are still here on Earth. They are representatives of their individual species, of course, but they can also take human form. While in human form they still keep some of the more characteristic traits of the animal they truly are.
Adam is tasked with finding one of the animals who has been spending strange amounts of money. After a road trip across America and a flight to England, he finds his quarry, but he also finds something unexpected – a plant from the Garden. A rose.
Adam and the Animals set out to find as many pieces of the Garden as possible. Of course, there are obstacles along the way.
The idea behind this book is really interesting. The concept of searching for the pieces of the Garden is enough to make one go out and buy this book. I also loved the animal/human characters in the book. Despite the fact of them being butterflies, pigs and ravens they were real. At times more real than Adam himself. And there we come across a problem.
Adam.
Adam is basically a brute force that is just along for the ride at times. I hope that was the point. Some disguised commentary on the superiority of animals over humans (?) perhaps. He could have been shown as more of a person. Just as the animals kept their traits when in human form, and plants from the Garden were almost Platonic ideals of each species, Adam should have been the most human human to ever human. He sadly is not. There were moments where it seemed he could be, but then the plot took off in another direction and all was lost.
While we are at the plot, there are issues there as well. Some of the lines of the blurb are misleading. There isn’t really a treasure hunt like element to the plot. Trying to gather two pieces of a Garden hardly a hunt makes.
Last but not least – the digressions. There are times in this book where it was obvious that the author wanted to give more character, colour and emotion to our protagonist through flashbacks, but all it served here, in my opinion, was to distract from the main plot and to make the reader care less for poor Adam. If those flashbacks had been moments when Adam had been on the verge of seeing a piece of the Garden perhaps, then that would have been better. But, then that would have been a completely different book and not the one we have before us.
I was sad that this did not live up to my expectations, but it was still a very intriguing read, for the idea if nothing else.
Full review from blog
ARC provided by NetGalley and Titan Books. Thanks.
The official blurb: „Many millennia after the fall of Eden, Adam, the first man in creation, still walks the Earth – exhausted by the endless death and destruction, he is a shadow of his former hope and glory.”
After walking the Earth for millenia, Adam is almost a shadow of himself. He is still stronger than your average man, and yeah, he’s immortal, but mentally he is almost ready to give up on everything. After a violent incident while in the employ of a Hollywood star, Adam is contacted by one of the birds from the Garden and he is given an assignment.
The Animals from the Garden in this story are still here on Earth. They are representatives of their individual species, of course, but they can also take human form. While in human form they still keep some of the more characteristic traits of the animal they truly are.
Adam is tasked with finding one of the animals who has been spending strange amounts of money. After a road trip across America and a flight to England, he finds his quarry, but he also finds something unexpected – a plant from the Garden. A rose.
Adam and the Animals set out to find as many pieces of the Garden as possible. Of course, there are obstacles along the way.
The idea behind this book is really interesting. The concept of searching for the pieces of the Garden is enough to make one go out and buy this book. I also loved the animal/human characters in the book. Despite the fact of them being butterflies, pigs and ravens they were real. At times more real than Adam himself. And there we come across a problem.
Adam.
Adam is basically a brute force that is just along for the ride at times. I hope that was the point. Some disguised commentary on the superiority of animals over humans (?) perhaps. He could have been shown as more of a person. Just as the animals kept their traits when in human form, and plants from the Garden were almost Platonic ideals of each species, Adam should have been the most human human to ever human. He sadly is not. There were moments where it seemed he could be, but then the plot took off in another direction and all was lost.
While we are at the plot, there are issues there as well. Some of the lines of the blurb are misleading. There isn’t really a treasure hunt like element to the plot. Trying to gather two pieces of a Garden hardly a hunt makes.
Last but not least – the digressions. There are times in this book where it was obvious that the author wanted to give more character, colour and emotion to our protagonist through flashbacks, but all it served here, in my opinion, was to distract from the main plot and to make the reader care less for poor Adam. If those flashbacks had been moments when Adam had been on the verge of seeing a piece of the Garden perhaps, then that would have been better. But, then that would have been a completely different book and not the one we have before us.
I was sad that this did not live up to my expectations, but it was still a very intriguing read, for the idea if nothing else.
dark
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
My goodness I really enjoyed this one. We follow Adam, the first man, who has been alive all this time living many many different lives all over the world. His weary, indifferent view on the world and humanity actually makes him a wonderful character to follow. All of humanity are his children, but instead of being overly protective Adam is indifferent to them, and will kill without mercy or regret when he needs to. However, if its an animal Adam is protective and this is where his emotion really shines through. The surrounding characters are animals who were also in Eden and have been around as long as Adam have, including creatures like Butterfly, Pig and Magpie, they're all animals in human form. Adam deeply cares for these characters and they really are shining stars of this show.
I was absolutely pulled in by Birds of Paradise and I really struggled to put it down. This isn't a religious book, of course Langmead is taking ideas from Christianity, with Adam and Eve and Eden, but he crafts a whole other mythology around it, and at no point is this preaching anything. The mythology feels wonderfully original and it is wholly enthralling. The plot takes us on the hunt for pieces of Eden, and as we travel Adam gives some insight into how his history intertwines with various places, and I LOVED this. Reading about his many lives and how he integrated into each place was just such a great addition to the story.
Adam is a pretty passive main character, he's dragged along by the plot and Magpie is more the driving force here. Adam just tends to go where he's told and do what he's told to do, he generally isn't privvy to any plans and it fits his character extremely well. Having a passive main character that works this well is incredibly rare and its what really makes this book shine.
My goodness I really enjoyed this one. We follow Adam, the first man, who has been alive all this time living many many different lives all over the world. His weary, indifferent view on the world and humanity actually makes him a wonderful character to follow. All of humanity are his children, but instead of being overly protective Adam is indifferent to them, and will kill without mercy or regret when he needs to. However, if its an animal Adam is protective and this is where his emotion really shines through. The surrounding characters are animals who were also in Eden and have been around as long as Adam have, including creatures like Butterfly, Pig and Magpie, they're all animals in human form. Adam deeply cares for these characters and they really are shining stars of this show.
I was absolutely pulled in by Birds of Paradise and I really struggled to put it down. This isn't a religious book, of course Langmead is taking ideas from Christianity, with Adam and Eve and Eden, but he crafts a whole other mythology around it, and at no point is this preaching anything. The mythology feels wonderfully original and it is wholly enthralling. The plot takes us on the hunt for pieces of Eden, and as we travel Adam gives some insight into how his history intertwines with various places, and I LOVED this. Reading about his many lives and how he integrated into each place was just such a great addition to the story.
Adam is a pretty passive main character, he's dragged along by the plot and Magpie is more the driving force here. Adam just tends to go where he's told and do what he's told to do, he generally isn't privvy to any plans and it fits his character extremely well. Having a passive main character that works this well is incredibly rare and its what really makes this book shine.
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What a book! I’m not quite sure what words to use to describe it. It’s certainly something new and unexpected. And look at that beautiful cover art! When I read the blurb, I just had to read it, and was very excited when my request for an eARC was approved. I was not disappointed.
Birds of Paradise opens with a hauntingly beautiful prologue in which Adam and Eve, still in the Garden, pull out their beating hearts and exchange them, before the story skips forward to modern times, when Adam is working as a bodyguard for a famous actress. The action then starts quite quickly after that, which took me a little by surprise, but I enjoyed being launched straight into the story. Now, I find this book hard to summarise, because the basic plot is quite simple (which is not a negative comment), and I don’t want to give too many things away. What I will say is that one of my favourite things about it was the fact that, as well as Adam and Eve being immortal, all the first creatures of Eden still live, wandering the earth, living life after life, because they existed before death. They can also take on human form, which is how Rook – the first one we meet – is both a bird and a partner in the law firm Corvid & Corvid along with his brother Magpie. Other recurring characters are Crow, Owl, Pig, Butterfly, and Crab, and I absolutely loved the interactions between Adam and his creatures. There is so much tenderness and respect there, which leads me to talk about Adam himself.
I’ve seen a plot summary of Birds of Paradise that describes it as “American Gods meets The Chronicles of Narnia,” and while I suppose the talking animals do recall C.S. Lewis’ work, I felt that Adam definitely reminded me of American Gods and it’s main character Shadow. Adam is described multiple times as being a very large man: tall, very muscular, intimidating, and very hard to buy clothes for. And like Shadow, he isn’t always as tough as he looks. Though he’s now worn down by his thousands of years on the earth, and has no scruples being violent when it’s needed, Adam is also very nurturing, and a lot of his inner thinking and his memories are about the many gardens he has tended to throughout his life, starting with the first Garden, and the love he has for Eve. He thinks in terms of gardening, and I loved the little habit he has of collecting seeds from whatever fruit he has eaten, carefully sifting through them to find any that might take and grow.
This book made me feel a lot of things, and I really enjoyed the way Langmead wove the action and the quiet moments, the present and the past, and the natural world with the cities. Birds of Paradise is full of beautiful descriptions, and I think I’ll need to read it again soon to fully appreciate them, but one of the things that stood out the most were the descriptions of cities: the story takes place mostly in the UK, with Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, and Manchester being the main cities featured, and Langmead definitely captured their essences perfectly.
All in all, a magnificent feat of storytelling, and a beautiful interpretation of what could be argued is the first tale. In some ways I wish it had gone on longer, because I didn’t want to leave the pages, but the ending was also perfect, closing the chapter of Adam’s life that we got to witness and leaving the door ajar for the next one.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Murder