Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen ~ Book Review

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Magical Realism
Read if you liked: The Wishing Game

Zoey arrives at her late-mother’s apartment with the hope that it will help her feel close to her and understand her life more. Upon her arrival at the Dellawisp, she meets a cast of quirky neighbors. When one of them dies in a tragic accident, the neighbors begin to come together and the magic that surrounds the Dellawisp becomes more apparent.

Some of Zoey’s new ‘neighbors’ just so happen to be ghosts and their narration is scattered throughout the story providing insight and perspective to the living characters who they haunt. The whole cast of characters really made this book sparkle. From the secretive estranged sisters, to the shy chef, to the elusive owner of the Dellawisp himself, the group became an unexpected family as they work together to clean out the apartment of the deceased resident in an effort to uncover the secret story she so often mentioned hiding.

The magic of the Dellawisp, which hosts a group of magical birds called dellawisps, was so palpable as was the larger community on Mallow Island. The lore surrounding the island’s famous recluse author was another level of mystery that tied the community together and kept me reading.

I loved the way individual one-on-on resident relationships were explored, each completely different and nuanced. We slowly come to learn the hardships and demons that each person is dealing with and to watch them soften as they open up.

This was a very character-driven story and as such, it felt fairly slow to me and I didn’t find the reveals to be terribly intriguing. That said, it was a very lovely, heartwarming, and unusual tale with a setting that truly came to life in a way that few books are able to achieve. 

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