A review by lizzie_5678
Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter

emotional funny hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes

3.75

“I find humans dull except in grief.”

This book is incredibly unique, and is almost a literary experiment in grief; part poetry, part prose, it frantically moves between the perspectives of a dad, his sons and a crow, evoking the turbulence of loss within this structure. There’s not much time to think about what is being said, as it is so fast-paced, which I enjoyed in a sense as I felt as though I couldn’t put the book down as a result. Yet at points the chaos was alienating, with the countless lists making me glaze over certain passages without fully taking them in. 

I also thought it was interesting how the characters had no names; they are just ‘dad’ and ‘the boys’. It makes them feel as though they are blueprints, characters onto whom we can project our own experiences of grief, which I think is heightened by the fact that we never know which of ‘the boys’ are talking, and are even told at one point that this doesn’t really matter: “i’m either brother”.

Overall, this was very different to what I would usually read, but I liked it!