All the Birds in the Sky

Oh, meh.

This one wasn't for me. I blame preconceptions. I went into this expecting a story about a witch and a scientist vying against each other against a backdrop of the end of the world. Instead....this felt like a fragment-y bunch of novel ideas jammed into a larger theme that was a bit unclear. Are we saving the world because humans are the most important part of the world or are we saving the world? Life is only meaningful if you find your soulmate?

Here's what happened to me. I started this with big hopes because I had read Anders's short fiction and really loved it. For about the first 100 pages I was hooked. And then, something changed and the book seemed to go nowhere. For about 100 pages it kind of just flops around and, maybe, grows the characters in a stew of hipsterness. Truth: I struggled, counting pages and timing myself to read chapters (usually the kiss of death for a book in my world). I put it down and read a few other books.

But, I really cared about the tree and the birds. I shit you not, that is why I picked the book back up and finished it. And it hurt. Because I no longer cared about Lawrence, Patricia, any other scientist or any other witch or wizard. I'm still a little shuddery about Roberta. I got through it .

I don't like to “get through” books. I think there was fragments of a really great book in here. I think it was buried under clever bullshit and too much of the storyline is given over to the will/ they wont they crap I expect to find in romance novels. And maybe it's me. I was expecting Night Circus and got something much less put together.