Little Book Bird

Summary

The entire theme is that even monsters have a story. This one is set within a prison and told by a inmate on death row. We also see stories from York, a prisoner with his execution date nearing, and the lady (an investigator) who falls in love with the priest. There is no other way to describe this book other than that it’s a dark tale from a unstable perspective.  

Pros

• Overall I mostly enjoyed the writing style. I have a little nitpick about it that I’ll mention in the cons, but I still did like it. It was poetic and had a good flow to it. One that gave enough detail to paint a picture but not too much as to overwhelm the reader. It had a good balance.

• The perspective and theme to this story is so unique and is my favorite part of the book. You don’t see a lot of books like this, touching on such a darker side of humanity, and doing it with such magical like etiquette. This is the entire reason I picked up the book in the first place.

• A few times while reading I stopped to think, and that’s a good thing. There are little thought provoking lines in there that seem to effortlessly placed. A job well done in that aspect.

Cons

• The narrating is a bit confusing. I wasn’t clear if it was the inmate was narrating the entire time (and thus probably improvising/making up much of the story) or if it switched to an omniscient viewpoint to tell the lady and priest’s story.

• The similes were overdone at times. Sometimes they just felt out of place or forced, and sometimes I didn’t even get what was trying to be described. The writing itself even felt…forced at times. As if it was trying to be grand while that’s just something that should happen.

• My biggest con about this book is that it just got boring. I was basically skimming at the end just to be able to finish it. There was no push for me to want to finish the book. I didn’t care about what happened to the characters, and I want a book to make me care. It fell flat for me. I just didn’t care despite how much I wanted to, which is a real shame; because this was one I was really looking forward to reading. I felt like more could have been done.

I would recommend to

Anyone who wants something different to read. This is a decent short read with a unique perspective. If you’re wanting something different, and darker, to read, this would be it. The warning I have is it does deal in some heavy issues like abuse and rape and so forth. While it doesn't go into excessive details it's definitely not glossed over, so such things may be unappealing or trigger provoking for sensitive audiences. 

Final verdict

It was okay. I didn’t not like and I didn’t love it, it was just okay. If it sounds interesting to you and you want to pick it up, great, do so! But if it doesn’t sound like your type of read you’re not missing out on anything fantastic.