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A review by northstar
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber
3.0
This is a solid 3.5, but I took off points because she didn't stick the landing. Whoops, wrong scoring system. Abu-Jaber's writing deserves a 4.5 or 5, but I had trouble getting into the book.
Felice ran away from her comfortable Miami-area home at age 13 and lives on the street. She agrees to see her mother on rare occasions but otherwise is not in touch with her family. During one steamy Florida summer, Felice, her brother and her parents take some baby steps to reconnect to themselves as a family.
Abu-Jaber writes beautiful prose and I continued to return to the novel for that. Here is one passage that describes a mother looking at her adult son.
"Avis turns to Stanley—who is staring at Nieves—and it's like peeling back a series of transparencies. There are the sloping bones of his adult face; there is the sugar-milk skin of Stanley at four."
Unfortunately, the plot sort of wanders and I never felt connected to the characters or their concerns. I would find myself wandering to other books but I always came back, and I recommend reading at least part of the novel just to read her descriptions. The story is tertiary.
Felice ran away from her comfortable Miami-area home at age 13 and lives on the street. She agrees to see her mother on rare occasions but otherwise is not in touch with her family. During one steamy Florida summer, Felice, her brother and her parents take some baby steps to reconnect to themselves as a family.
Abu-Jaber writes beautiful prose and I continued to return to the novel for that. Here is one passage that describes a mother looking at her adult son.
"Avis turns to Stanley—who is staring at Nieves—and it's like peeling back a series of transparencies. There are the sloping bones of his adult face; there is the sugar-milk skin of Stanley at four."
Unfortunately, the plot sort of wanders and I never felt connected to the characters or their concerns. I would find myself wandering to other books but I always came back, and I recommend reading at least part of the novel just to read her descriptions. The story is tertiary.