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kp_writ's review
adventurous
mysterious
slow-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? It's complicated
4.5
The kind of book that makes you feel like you accomplished something by finishing. And by that I mean it was dreadfully slow, and I had to work hard to keep my interest and understand the perspective shifts (that were confusing whether they happened chapter by chapter or paragraph by paragraph or towards the end even sentence by sentence). I'm very glad to have read it, and I think it's a book I may return to eventually for a reread, but it is not an easy read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Colonisation, Abandonment, Confinement, Death, Dementia, and Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Suicide attempt
20sidedbi's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Beautiful intricate and intense. A little hard for me to follow as an audiobook, but still good. This book has a hard ending. Not happy, but not all bad. Just hard.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Forced institutionalization, Abandonment, Colonisation, and Death
Moderate: Murder and Violence
graculus's review
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
I went through quite a phase of not giving books 5 stars because I suspected I wasn't going to want to re-read them, but for The Vanished Birds that seems a little unfair - it's definitely true that I'm unlikely to return to this book but I can't help but recognise the quality of the writing involved and give it the rating it deserves.
It's based on a number of stories woven together, starting off on a planet being exploited for one of its resources, visited every 15 years by a ship to take away the shipments of a purple seed it produces. We start with the measuring of those visits through the lifetime of one of that planet's people, visits which are mere months apart from the point of view of the ship's pilot. That planet is also the place where one of our other characters first appears, as a child appearing from nowhere, taken on board the ship as a favour to a dying friend.
The other main story line involves a woman who was instrumental in the creation of much of the technologies on which everyone relies, relentlessly reliving a failed love affair through the bodies of multiple individuals who are paid to change their appearance, and who believes that abilities like the child's are the next step forward on a technological basis. In the end, she pays the captain to keep the child and bring him up, suspecting he has this ability even though nobody has ever seen it.
The Vanished Birds is very much a story about found family, both one that falls apart early on as they can't cope with the strangeness of the child in their midst, and another one which forms despite the fact they've been thrown together solely for the purpose of keeping that child safe while also monitoring his abilities. The author is also not scared of killing off characters but it doesn't feel gratuitous, just part and parcel of everything going on within a realistic story line. Matters come to a head, abilities are uncovered but there's also a resolution, which is not that usual a thing in a genre full of trilogies and series. As a first novel too, it's pretty impressive, so I can't wait to see what this author does next.
It's based on a number of stories woven together, starting off on a planet being exploited for one of its resources, visited every 15 years by a ship to take away the shipments of a purple seed it produces. We start with the measuring of those visits through the lifetime of one of that planet's people, visits which are mere months apart from the point of view of the ship's pilot. That planet is also the place where one of our other characters first appears, as a child appearing from nowhere, taken on board the ship as a favour to a dying friend.
The other main story line involves a woman who was instrumental in the creation of much of the technologies on which everyone relies, relentlessly reliving a failed love affair through the bodies of multiple individuals who are paid to change their appearance, and who believes that abilities like the child's are the next step forward on a technological basis. In the end, she pays the captain to keep the child and bring him up, suspecting he has this ability even though nobody has ever seen it.
The Vanished Birds is very much a story about found family, both one that falls apart early on as they can't cope with the strangeness of the child in their midst, and another one which forms despite the fact they've been thrown together solely for the purpose of keeping that child safe while also monitoring his abilities. The author is also not scared of killing off characters but it doesn't feel gratuitous, just part and parcel of everything going on within a realistic story line. Matters come to a head, abilities are uncovered but there's also a resolution, which is not that usual a thing in a genre full of trilogies and series. As a first novel too, it's pretty impressive, so I can't wait to see what this author does next.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Forced institutionalization, and Mass/school shootings
Minor: Body horror, Forced institutionalization, and Medical trauma
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