A review by serendipitysbooks
Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

I might be late to the works of Max Porter but I went in for a deep dive and came up as a major fan of his imagination, his innovative structures, his fragmentary poetic style and special way with words, plus his ability to capture and portray so much in so few words. I listened and read simultaneously which let me appreciate these visually and aurally.

I left the first until last. Grief is the Thing with Feathers follows a newly widowed man who happens to be a Ted Hughes scholar, and his two young boys in the weeks, months and years that follow. They are visited by a crow who promises to stay until they no longer need him. Porter does a beautiful job capturing love and grief in all their many guises. But it was the voice of the wise-cracking crow that stole the show for me and made this much funnier - albeit often darkly funny - than I expected a book about grief to be.

Content Warnings