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myngerrys's review
adventurous
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
grayjay's review against another edition
3.0
This was sort of a psychological hiking thriller about a couple pushing themselves to try more and more difficult backcountry hikes around the world, while trying to reconcile the conflict between their desire for "freedom" and their awareness of their ecological impact on the wilderness.
rossu's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
serendipitysbooks's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This is the story of Heidi and Jyrki, a Finnish couple on a hiking adventure down- under. I really enjoyed the use of many distinct threads in this novel - first person accounts of a hike along Tasmania’s South Coast in 2007 narrated from alternating perspectives, the backstory of their meeting and earlier hikes in New Zealand and Australia, extracts from the novel Heart of Darkness, extracts from a natural history digest, plus some malevolent thoughts from another character or characters. The sense of foreboding increased throughout the novel, especially due to the tension between the two characters, as well as the risks from the environment, and of course the extracts. My one big reservation was the way the Kea, a mountain parrot unique to New Zealand, was mischaracterised and misused in the plot.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury
books_and_keys's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
lamusadelils's review against another edition
3.0
Eso fue... Extraño. Ya había leído a Sinisalo y sabía que me iba a sacar de onda pero fue de una manera distinta a la esperada. No es realmente terror pero si es inquietante y poco a poco te va poniendo más alerta. La naturaleza se vuelve casi un personaje más y cada descripción de ruidos o de vegetación o tipos de rocas sé vuelve una advertencia de que la "acción" podría comenzar otra vez.
La pareja protagonista me aburrió un poco y me estaba costando leer por eso, pero al final me quedo con una historia que explora la naturaleza y sus misterios como paralelo de una relación entre dos personas. Así como Heart of Darkness explora lo más intenso de la humanidad desde lo desconocido de la naturaleza, aquí el territorio no explorado es, hasta cierto punto, está incipiente relación donde casi no se conocen y poco a poco revelan mucho de si mismos.
La pareja protagonista me aburrió un poco y me estaba costando leer por eso, pero al final me quedo con una historia que explora la naturaleza y sus misterios como paralelo de una relación entre dos personas. Así como Heart of Darkness explora lo más intenso de la humanidad desde lo desconocido de la naturaleza, aquí el territorio no explorado es, hasta cierto punto, está incipiente relación donde casi no se conocen y poco a poco revelan mucho de si mismos.
jayshay's review against another edition
2.0
Can a book cheat? Sure all novels are constructions. The author is building something to cause an effect. A book that effectively manipulates a reader is a successful one. But is there an onus to be honest?
I think I came into this with too much in the way of genre expectations. The book is set up like a thriller. There is much forboding. There are endless Heart of Darkness quotes. There is a little brother who is a complete anti-social little fuck. Even at 50 pages from the end I was waiting for the various threads to collide. But in the end the book doesn't cohere except in the most random, understated, pat way: nature will have its revenge. Frustratingly, the little brother turns magically into the kea bird or a merciless, angry symbol of nature. The problem is that it feels so much like a writerly creation that it didn't resonate for me. Sinisalo is a wonderful author and watching the characters circle around each other and survive is worth the read, but the end is a cake that didn't rise, a gun that didn't go off, an acorn that didn't grow.
I was gripped all the way through, but I feel like Sinisalo did a bait-and-switch on me at the end. Ha, ha! It was nature all along! How surprising! Not really. The constant bits about the Kea bird drove home that much of the mischievous disappearances were possibly benign, but Sinisalo countered that with the possibility of sociopathic little brother shadowing and fucking with the couple. That at the end she waved her authorly wand and combined bird and brother to make nature have its revenge on these two hikers was far too convenient to make a satisfying story.
archergal's review against another edition
3.0
Holy carp, what to say about this book...
First off, it's my second book by a Finnish author in a fairly short time. The two authors, Sinisalo and Emmi Itäranta, couldn't be more different in style or subject.
Birdbrain tells the story of two Finnish eco-tourists hiking in Tasmania and New Zealand. The timeline is a bit fragmented. There's some jumping back and forth in time and place. I actually sat down at one point and started a linear timeline, just to get the events to line up clearly in my head.
Jyrki, the male of the party, is a hard-core hiker, seeking out places farthest off the beaten track for his travels. Heidi is more rooted in the modern world. She basically joins Jyrki's trip on a whim. Each one relates what happens from his/her own point of view. That's actually an interesting way to tell the story, because Heidi and Jyrki tend to see things VERY differently.
The hikers' narratives are interspersed with quotations from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and with little accounts told from another viewpoint. These accounts from a third viewpoint are disturbing, and add to a building sense of dread through the book.
In the end, I can't say for sure whether I think the book was successful or not. The whole situation of the hikers got in my head a bit and worried me, so the storytelling was effective in that respect. I can't say I really LIKED the characters, but that doesn't seem to have been as much of a deal-breaker in this book as it sometimes is for me. I think it might be worthwhile to go back and read it again and see if I understood more things better now.
First off, it's my second book by a Finnish author in a fairly short time. The two authors, Sinisalo and Emmi Itäranta, couldn't be more different in style or subject.
Birdbrain tells the story of two Finnish eco-tourists hiking in Tasmania and New Zealand. The timeline is a bit fragmented. There's some jumping back and forth in time and place. I actually sat down at one point and started a linear timeline, just to get the events to line up clearly in my head.
Jyrki, the male of the party, is a hard-core hiker, seeking out places farthest off the beaten track for his travels. Heidi is more rooted in the modern world. She basically joins Jyrki's trip on a whim. Each one relates what happens from his/her own point of view. That's actually an interesting way to tell the story, because Heidi and Jyrki tend to see things VERY differently.
The hikers' narratives are interspersed with quotations from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and with little accounts told from another viewpoint.
Spoiler
I apparently missed the fact that these accounts of someone doing bad things were being done by Heidi's brother. Who may or may not have been a kea. And there may or may not really have been a kea in the story at all. It was all rather confusing.In the end, I can't say for sure whether I think the book was successful or not. The whole situation of the hikers got in my head a bit and worried me, so the storytelling was effective in that respect. I can't say I really LIKED the characters, but that doesn't seem to have been as much of a deal-breaker in this book as it sometimes is for me. I think it might be worthwhile to go back and read it again and see if I understood more things better now.
merri's review against another edition
4.0
olen luku-urallani lukenut paljon kirjoja, mutta yhteen tyyliseikkaan en totu: avoimeksi jääviin loppuihin. tämä oli kirja, jota ei halunnut laskea käsistään, vaikka selkeitä tapahtumia oli vähän. takakannen synkistely matkasta 'pimeyden sydämeen' toteutui lopussa liiankin konkreettisesti, vaikka vielä 20 sivua ennen loppua kummastelin tätä sanavalintaa. kursiivilla kirjoitetut väliluvut hämmästyttivät. lopussa ehkä selvisi hieman niiden olemassaolo kirjassa, mutta ei täysin. niiden jokapäiväinen, maallinen, suunniteltu arkinen pahuus tuntui pahalta ja jätti epämiellyttävän olon. kadutti, että luin ne osat.
juuri tätä kirjaa ennen luin johanna sinisalon enkelten verta, joka oli tylsä eikä kerrontakaan vakuuttanut. onneksi annoin sinisalolle uuden mahdollisuuden - linnunaivot on älykäs, kuvaileva, kaunis ja laittaa miettimään suhdetta luontoon ja omaan mieleen.
juuri tätä kirjaa ennen luin johanna sinisalon enkelten verta, joka oli tylsä eikä kerrontakaan vakuuttanut. onneksi annoin sinisalolle uuden mahdollisuuden - linnunaivot on älykäs, kuvaileva, kaunis ja laittaa miettimään suhdetta luontoon ja omaan mieleen.